


A New World in my View

by phwise



Series: New World [1]
Category: Avengers (Comics), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, DCU (Comics), Power Girl (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Multiple Crossovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 12:56:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 68,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1470643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phwise/pseuds/phwise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of a spell gone wrong, trapped in a world not their own, two lost souls seek a way to reclaim the lives they lost. An X-Men, Power Girl, Avengers, DCU, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New Girl in Town

Xander was falling. It was night, and he was falling.  
  
'Crap, double crap, triple crap, quadruple crap, quintuple crap.' He thought. He wasn't sure where he was or how he had gotten here, but he was definitely falling. He kind of figured that the heart-wrenching sensation of the fall would eventually go away, but right now? Not so much. The last thing he remembered was... was THAT COSTUME. The one Cordelia had made him wear after he'd lost their bet. The one that was currently really uncomfortably tight around his chest and butt. He'd been out chaperoning a bunch of kids, and trying not to feel miserable in his blonde wig and white costume with red cape, a shadow passed over his vision, and then he was here.  
  
Falling.  
  
Screaming at the top of his lungs, too. The wind took his voice before it could reach his ears. Below, a cityscape was rushing up to meet him with uncomfortable speed.   
  
He could not quite stop the choked giggle that escaped him, cutting off his scream, when he realized that he was falling towards the island of Manhattan, though he didn't remember there being a big skyscraper with the number four on each side at the top.   
  
The street grew ever closer, and Xander did the only thing he could think of: he prayed. 'God, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Vishnu, Buddha, hell, I'd take CROM at this point... I could really use some help here!'  
  
He had time to see the 42nd and Madison street signs plus the shocked expressions on the faces of pedestrians right before he hit the ground.

 

\----------------

A New World in my View  
by P.H. Wise  
A BtVS Crossover Fanfic  
  
Chapter 01: New Girl in Town  
  
Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Comics. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. I am none of these people. This story is an answer to the Supergirl Xander challenge.

\----------------

"Who's the hottie?" The voice belonged to Johnny Storm - blue hair, blonde eyes ... Wait, reverse those. His gaze lingered on the young woman lying unconscious on the medical bed beneath a host of scanning arrays in the Four Freedoms Plaza's sickbay.  
  
"We don't know," Sue replied. Sister to Johnny, wife to the other man in the room - Reed Richards, who was currently hard at work operating the medical scanners.  
  
Johnny let the door shut behind him as he crossed the smooth white floor that separated him from the hottie on the bed. Holographic screens floated all around her, some of them semi-solid, and responding to the touch of Reed's elongated limbs, stretched from one side of the bed to another. He looked down at the girl.   
  
"God damn," he murmured. There's really no other way to say it: the girl was stacked. And considering the shredded state of her clothing, not to mention the skimpy nature of said clothing to begin with, there was no hiding from her charms. Her obviously developed musculature (and six pack abs) were a little weird when paired with her other endowments, but Johnny wasn't complaining. Young, too - Johnny'd put her age at 18 at most. Gorgeous. Almost boyishly short blonde hair. Flawless skin. Clad in the remains of a white leotard with very high cut leg holes, a red cape that had seen better days, a red belt, blue gloves and boots. ... None of it fit her very well. "What do we know?" he asked.  
  
"The young woman fell from the sky above Manhattan Island approximately twenty minutes ago," Reed replied, not looking up from his work. "She landed on the pavement traveling at terminal velocity, and she left a crater at the site of impact six feet deep. She has three broken ribs, extensive bruising, and a few nasty scrapes to show for it."  
  
Johnny raised an eyebrow. "Is she a mutant?"  
  
Sue and Reed exchanged looks. "Not as such," Reed said, followed immediately by Sue saying, "She's not human."  
  
"Looks pretty human to me."  
  
"How much would you say she weighs, Johnny?"  
  
Johnny considered the girl once more, this time with an evaluating eye rather than an appreciative one. ... well, slightly less appreciative. Well... evaluating, anyways. She was maybe 5'11. Well muscled in spite of her large bosom. "180, maybe 200 pounds tops?"  
  
"Five hundred and ten, actually."  
  
Johnny looked surprised at that. "... Damn. Guess that explains the damage to the street."  
  
"In part," Reed replied.  
  
"So," Johnny said, "Random not-human girl falls from the sky above New York, survives the fall, and just happens to land in our front yard?"  
  
Sue shrugged, and looked to Reed. "What do your measurements show?" she asked.  
  
"... Double D, at least."  
  
Reed and Sue gave Johnny a look.  
  
"What? You give me a line like that, and you expect me not to take it? I'm only human."  
  
The girl let out a faint groan, drawing the attention of the three heroes.   
  
"She's waking up," Reed said.

\----------------  
  
 _Sunnydale High_  
  
"Haven't you ever wondered what you'll be when you grow up?" Cordelia asked.   
  
Xander shrugged. "I always figured I'd just be Xander, and let the rest take care of itself."  
  
"That's no reason to avoid career week," Cordelia replied. "Come on. They've already posted the results."  
  
Something about the career fair made him feel downright uneasy. ... wasn't it not supposed to be happening for another couple of weeks? He was pretty sure that's what the school calendar said, anyways. "What do you care, anyways?" he asked. But Cordelia gave him a look that said she wasn't going to have any of it, and his resistance faded in the face of it. He let her drag him over to the bulletin board, and watched bemusedly as she examined her own listing.   
  
"Oh, here I am," Cordelia said. "'Personal shopper or motivational speaker.' Neato!"  
  
"Motivational speaker?" Xander asked, sarcasm thick in his voice, "On what? Ten ways to a more annoying you?"  
  
Cordelia glared, and then paged through the H-K list to find Xander's result. "And what about you? You're..." she broke out into giggles. "Oh. Oh wow."   
  
"What?" Xander rushed over to the board to examine his place on the list. "What?!"   
  
Xander Harris. Superheroine.  
  
...  
Wait, WHAT?  
  
He was still staring in shock at the listing when the world began to blur around him. He felt as though his head were wrapped in a wet towel, and everything grew painfully bright...  
  
\----------------  
  
 _Four Freedoms' Tower_  
  
Waking up was not the most pleasant experience Xander Harris had ever had. His head throbbed - his whole body throbbed, actually - and the light was almost physically painful to look at. He tried to lift an arm, to rub his eyes, but his arm felt like it was made of lead. "Ugh..." he moaned.  
  
Slowly, the world came into focus. There were shapes now, and not just painful light and colour. His body felt... different. Weird. There was a weight on his chest that hadn't been there before. His thoughts were fuzzy. Weirdly out of focus.   
  
And then he looked down and saw his own chest. Or rather, her own chest. She stared down at her own ample bosom for a long moment with a look of complete incomprehension. Then a quick check with the fingers revealed that she was in fact naked under the blanket that covered her from the waist down, and that yes, she was missing a particular part of her anatomy between her legs. Someone was speaking, but she couldn't make out the words. All the blood felt like it was rushing away from her head.  
  
All things considered, Xander took the situation rather well: she fainted.  
  
Waking up the second time was easier. No slow process this, but the flick of a switch. One moment unconscious, the next, awake.   
  
She was still lying on a cold bed, a blanket still covering her from the waist down. The lights were dimmer now, and a woman with long blonde hair was looking down at her, smiling compassionately. "Hey," the woman said. "How do you feel?"  
  
Xander had to swallow three times before she could manage to speak, "... like I got into a fight with a city bus... and lost..." Her voice was higher now - in the alto range - and there was a strength and authority in it that it had never held before, even now, even barely able to speak as she was. She wasn't sure she liked that.  
  
The woman laughed. "More like a city street. Can you tell me your name? And how you wound up falling from the sky above New York city?"  
  
Xander opened her mouth to reply. She knew who she was, certianly - her memories were clear right up until the point where hit the ground. ... but how DID she get here? And did she really want to give the name 'Xander Harris' in this situation? She'd never live it down. She shook her head, trying very hard to get a handle on the panic that was bubbling up from the pit of her stomach, "I'm sorry, I don't..."  
  
The woman nodded. "Short term memory loss is sometimes associated with ... accidents. It should come back once you've recovered from the concussion."  
  
Xander nodded faintly. "... Thanks," she managed. A pause. "Am I in the hospital?"  
  
The woman shook her head. "You're inside Four Freedoms' Plaza. When you crashed just outside, well..." she shrugged. "I'm Sue. Sue Richards. We've been tending to your injuries."  
  
"Who's we?"   
  
"Besides myself? Reed, my husband, my brother Johnny, and Ben."  
  
"... Huh."  
  
Sue raised an eyebrow. "Never heard of the Fantastic Four?" she asked.  
  
"I've heard of the Magnificent Seven? ... which I'm guessing is totally not the same thing."  
  
"Guess you're not from around here." Sue laid out a pair of of jeans and a black tanktop - both in her sizes, followed by a bra and panties. "We're going to ask that you stay here in the medical bay until Reed thinks you're well enough to walk around. He'll be in shortly - we decided that it would be better not to expose you to too many different faces all at once. Or at least not until you're dressed. Do you need help getting dressed?"  
  
Xander's face burned with embarrassment at that, and while she had no idea how to put on a bra, she shook her head. "No thanks."   
  
"I'll just be outside, then. If you need anything, call out and we'll hear you."  
  
A moment later, the door opened with a hiss, and Sue stepped out of the room, the door closing behind her shortly afterwards.   
  
Xander sat up and looked around at the medical bay, still in shock, but now desperately trying to come up with some sort of story to tell these people. ... Well, some sort of story OTHER than the truth: telling people about the Hellmouth and Halloween and all the rest, besides being really embarrassing, would probably not cement her position as a member of the 'being sane' club in the eyes of her hosts.  
  
She didn't even try to put on the bra, but she did manage the panties, the jeans, and the tank top - which she filled out generously. It hurt to put on the clothes. Her ribs. Sharp, burning pain every time she inhaled.   
  
'OK, Xander,' she thought, 'Let's approach this rationally. You lost the bet, you dressed as Power Girl, something happened, and now... it's a dream. That has to be it. It's just a bad dream.' She pinched herself.   
  
Nothing.  
  
'Right. Not a dream. You've actually been transformed into a girl, you're injured, and you're stuck in New York until you can find a way to get home and hopefully to reverse this transformation without anyone finding out that it happened. ... can this get any worse?'  
  
No sooner had she thought it than it did: Xander Harris, newly female, really needed to pee.  
  
It didn't take long to find the restroom - unisex, thank Crom - and after she'd relieved herself, she took a moment to consider her reflection in the mirror. ... and immediately recognized the person looking back: Power Girl.  
  
She'd been turned into Power Girl.   
  
Staring at her own reflection, Xander couldn't help but drool.  
  
\----------------  
  
 _Ethan's Halloween Supply, Sunnydale  
Three Hours Ago_  
  
"It's come as you aren't night," Buffy told Willow as she led the other girl through the costume shop's racks. A new store. 'Ethan's. "The perfect chance for a girl to get sexy and wild with no repercussions."  
  
"Oh, I don't get wild," Willow replied, finding the whole idea a bit dubious. "Wild on me equals spaz."  
  
"Don't underestimate yourself. You've got it in you."  
  
Willow spotted Xander as he approached, smiled, and called out, "Hey Xander! What'd you get?" She gestured to the shopping bag he held.   
  
A beat passed, and then Willow frowned. "... You're not really going through with that bet you made with Cordelia, are you?"  
  
His face burning with shame, Xander opened the bag, revealing the Powergirl costume that lay within, complete with blonde wig. "Shoot me. Stuff me. Mount me." he muttered.  
  
Buffy looked sympathetic. "Nobody really expects you..." She trailed off. "OK, nobody who isn't Cordelia really expects you to go through with it, Xander."  
  
"A bet's a bet. A man doesn't go back on his word."  
  
Buffy made a face. He was still sore about that whole 'violating the guy code' thing, it seemed. "Xander, I really am sorry about this morning."  
  
"Trying to repress here, Buffy," he replied.  
  
"Right." She put her chin on his shoulder and pouted. "Okay, then I promise, from now on I'll let you get pummeled."  
  
Xander rolled his eyes. "Thank you," he said.  
  
\----------------  
  
 _Four Freedoms' Tower_  
  
A knock on the door brought Xander out of her thoughts. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, now, bare feet dangling just above the cold floor. She looked up. "... Yeah?"  
  
The door opened, and a man in a blue jumpsuit with white hair at his temples entered, followed closely by Sue. "How are you feeling?" Sue asked.  
  
Xander met her gaze, smiled a little uncomfortably, and did NOT say the first thing that came to mind ('emasculated'), but took a moment to think about what to say, and then said, "Better. Still some pain, but better."  
  
"Glad to hear it." Sue gestured to the man who had preceded her into the room. "This is Reed. Reed, this is..." she looked questioningly to Xander.   
  
Xander said nothing, wracking her brain for some kind of response, finding none.   
  
"Sue tells me you've been having some problems with your memory," Reed said. "Why don't you just tell us whatever you can?"  
  
It came to her as a flash of inspiration: a name she could use while she was stuck in this body that would never be associated with her old one. A name that they wouldn't immediately know to the name of a fictional character - after all, Power Girl was pretty widely known as Kara Zor-L, and while she liked that one better, she didn't want to press her luck. It would be weird to be called by it, but Xander had dealt with weird before, and honestly? It was better than telling them the truth. "... Starr," she said. "My name is Karen Starr."  
  
Sue looked a bit dubious, but Reed smiled, and if Xander couldn't tell if it was an amused smile or a polite smile, well... she wasn't going to stress over it. "A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Starr," Reed said.  
  
"Right. I hate to cut this short, and I'm grateful and everything, but..." Xander looked a little embarrassed, and rubbed the back of her neck. "Can I use a phone?"  
  
Reed and Sue exchanged glances.  
  
"Who would you call, Ms. Starr?" Sue asked.  
  
Xander couldn't quite suppress her discomfort. "... look, can you not call me 'Ms. Starr?'"  
  
"Karen, then."  
  
Xander looked at them both for a long moment. "I need to get in touch with a man named Rupert Giles," she said finally.   
  
"I don't think that's going to happen," Reed said. "Not yet, anyways."  
  
Xander's eyes narrowed. Were these people really going to try to keep her here? She hopped off the bed, ignoring the sudden searing pain in her chest, and landed on her feet with far more of a thud than her body had any right to produce. "Am I a prisoner?" she asked.   
  
"No. But you are an unknown quantity."  
  
"I haven't done anything wrong," Xander said.  
  
"We scanned you while you were unconscious, Karen," Sue said. "We know that you're an extra-terrestrial."  
  
Xander tried not to let the shock she felt show on her face. She knew that Power Girl was a Kryptonian, but the idea of herself as a Kryptonian hadn't connected emotionally before now. ... she was an alien. With Superman's powers! Immediately, she tried to use her X-Ray vision.   
  
...  
Nothing.  
Damn. Were her eyes broken or something?  
  
Reed nodded in agreement with his wife, unaware of what Xander was attempting. "You could have any number of bacteria or viruses in your system that would prove lethal - or at the very least problematic - to the general population. Until we're sure that releasing you wouldn't cause a pandemic or worse, we'd like you to remain here. We have the necessary resources to deal with anything you might be carrying. There are very few others who can say the same."  
  
Xander made a face at that. She didn't much like the idea, and Sue picked up on it, following right on the heels of her husband's words with, "And besides, you haven't recovered from your injuries yet. No sense leaving when you shouldn't even be out of bed, is there?"   
  
A twinge of pain from Xander's broken ribs sealed the deal. She sighed. "... All right, but I reserve the right to complain endlessly about being stuck in one room for however long it takes you to finish your tests."  
  
Sue cracked a smile. "That sounds fair."  
  
\----------------  
  
Her recovery was slow, and for the life of her, Xander couldn't figure out why. Didn't Power Girl normally heal really quickly? But here she was, a week into her extended stay at Four Freedoms' Plaza, still not allowed outside, and her ribs still hurt like hell, and her bruises had only just begun to fade. Granted, she was healing faster than a normal human, but still... it was annoying as hell.   
  
A week.  
  
She'd been a girl for a week. The idea still gave her the creeping horrors, and given the specific shape of this particular female body, it wasn't like she could just hide everything: she was reminded of her femaleness on an almost hourly basis. Sometimes she'd be fine for hours at a time, and then she'd feel her breasts shifting slightly when she moved, or just become painfully aware of the slight sway of her hips when she walked that she couldn't quite stop, or even just the way a fabric felt against her skin.   
  
...  
  
and then there was Johnny.  
  
...  
  
Oh boy, but there was Johnny.  
  
\----------------  
  
"Evening, gorgeous," the soon-to-be object of Xander's irritation called out as Sue led her into a dining room where he, Reed and a ... big... rock thing in blue shorts? ... waited.  
  
Xander stared.  
  
"I know we can't all have supermodel good looks like me," the rock thing said, "But in some places starin' like that is considered rude."  
  
Xander kept right on staring.  
  
"Karen," Sue said, "This is Johnny," she indicated the blonde-haired, blue eyed young man, clad in the ever popular blue jumpsuit that seemed like it was all these people wore, "And that's Ben. Ben, Johnny, this is Karen Starr. She's going to be staying with us for a while."  
  
"Pleasure's all mine," Ben said, and offered a hand.   
  
"Pretty sure you're wrong," Johnny commented in a sotto voice.  
  
Xander felt a stab of irritation pass through her, but refrained from giving Johnny the dirty look that he deserved - Sue was already taking care of that. Instead, she shook Ben's hand. "Nice to, er, meet you." She paused. "You're not demons, right?"  
  
The Fantastic Four each looked at her in surprise.   
  
"Do you deal with demons on a regular basis, Ms. Starr?" Reed asked.  
  
Xander shook her head. "Er, no," she lied poorly, and realized it almost immediately. "...by which I mean yes. Deal with. Demons, that is. There's dealing." And then she realized she was babbling almost as badly as Willow, and shut her mouth with an audible click.  
  
Sue smiled an amused sort of smile. "No, we're not demons, Karen. We're human, just like everybody else." She paused, and then met Xander's gaze. "Well, almost everybody else."  
  
"So you're the super-powered alien chick I keep hearing about?" Ben asked.  
  
Xander sat down at the table. "Unless you've got more than one of us stashed away here?"  
  
"Just you at the moment," Sue said.   
  
"Heh," Ben said as he walked from the kitchen to put food on the table. "So what powers ya got?"  
  
Xander actually had to think about that one. Did all of Power Girl's abilities carry over? ... She hadn't been able to fly, and she certainly wasn't healing as fast as she should if she really had Power Girl's powers, and her one attempt to use x-ray vision had totally failed. ... but she WAS way heavier than she should be, and she kept breaking things on accident. If she had to guess, she'd probably put her level of strength at Buffy level. But that was nowhere near what she was supposed to be capable of. "... I'm not sure, actually."   
  
"Wanna find out?"  
  
"That'll have to wait until some time when I'm not completely messed from kissing pavement at terminal velocity," Xander replied. " Nine point eight meters per second per second may not be what it used to be, but I still don't recommend it."

\----------------  
  
It hadn't been so bad at first. Xander actually liked Ben, and Sue was cool, and Reed was, well, distant and scientific.   
  
Johnny needed to learn to leave well enough alone. Getting hit on was creepy enough, but getting hit on almost constantly? ... She was beginning to consider solutions which involved violence.   
  
At least she was going to be allowed access to a phone today. They'd done enough tests to be pretty sure that she wasn't carrying the next Ebola virus in her bloodstream, even if the needles they'd had to use to pierce her skin were truly the stuff of nightmares. Stupid ultra-dense cellular structure.   
  
She was walking with Sue again, heading for some sort of communications room, though why they didn't just let her borrow a cell phone was beyond her. As she walked, she absently noted the treated windows. It was day time, but those windows weren't letting sunlight through. That made her frown. Why bother having windows if they didn't let sunlight through at all? Weird.   
  
She stepped into the communications room, and Sue quickly directed her to sit down at a glowing futuristic terminal.   
  
"That's your phone?" Xander asked.  
  
Sue shrugged. "Technically, no. But since you're not keyed into our network, this is what you can use."  
  
Xander gave the setup a dubious look. "How do I...?"  
  
"Place a call?" Sue reached over and manipulated the holographic screen for a few moments, brought up the phone menu, and then gestured to Xander. "There you are. Just hit 'end' when you're done." And she sat down at the seat next to Xander's.  
  
Xander gave her an uncomfortable look. "Er, look, could I maybe do this in private?"  
  
Sue thought about that, nodded, stood up, and left the room. "Remember," she called as the door slid shut, "End when you're done."  
  
Xander let out a breath. "Right. OK." She typed in Giles' phone number on the holo-pad.   
  
_#The number you have dialed is not in service, or has been disconnected...#_  
  
Xander frowned. She paused a moment, and then dialed Buffy's phone number.  
  
 _#The number you have dialed is not in service, or has been disconnected...#_  
  
Feeling a sense of rising panic, Xander typed in Willow's phone number, and when that didn't work, after wracking her brain for another number to try, went and dialed the number for Jessie's parents, too.   
  
_#The number you have dialed is not in service, or has been disconnected...#_  
  
Her own phone number.  
  
#Hello?# The man's voice on the other end wasn't one she recognized.  
  
"... Is this the Harris residence?" she asked.  
  
#I'm sorry,# the man replied. #I think you have the wrong number.#  
  
"Sue?" she called out. "Sue?!"  
  
The door opened, and Sue poked her head in. "Karen?"  
  
"Can you do a search on the town of Sunnydale, California?"  
  
Sue nodded, sitting down next to Xander and letting her fingers fly across the controls. A moment later, the results of the search came up on the screen: no matches. No such location.  
  
Xander's eyes went wide. "I think I'm not in Kansas anymore."  
  
 _End Chapter 01_


	2. Learning the Ropes

"Actually, I wanted to discuss an issue that came up eight days previous," Reed said. He was seated at an ornate wooden table in distinguished company: Charles Xavier to his right, Namor, King of Atlantis to his left, Stephen Strange, Iron Man, and Black Bolt across the table from him.   
  
The others looked his way, waiting for him to continue.  
  
Reed produced a small holo-emitter and activated it: an image of the blonde haired, busty, female Xander Haris appeared floating above the device. "It appears that I have gained myself a house guest," he began.  
  
Namor looked annoyed. "I hardly see how this is a matter for our consideration. Did we not agree that this would be a forum in which we discussed only 'The Big Things?'"   
  
Reed ruthlessly suppressed the annoyance he felt. "With respect, King Namor, she is not a small thing."   
  
Namor did not seem impressed, but he nodded for Reed to continue.  
  
Reed hit a switch, and began to display the readings he had taken in his scans of the girl. "Her name is Karen Starr. Alien. Unknown planet of origin. Her abnormally dense molecular structure gives her a baseline strength and toughness several times that of an ordinary woman. That in and of itself would not be a problem, if it weren't for the nature of her power."  
  
Iron Man studied the holographic display. "... we've dealt with beings able to absorb solar energy before," he said, his tone neutral.  
  
"Not like this," Reed replied. "I've managed to prevent her exposure to sunlight thus far, but it will happen, and once it does, her power will grow exponentially. Ultimately, if my analysis of her potential is correct, she will become a being of comparable power to Thor. The process will take time, but once started..."  
  
"Surely you're not suggesting that we kill her simply because she's an Omega Class being," Xavier said.   
  
"No. But I am asking for your advice."  
  
There was a moment of silence at the table, and then the Black Bolt raised his hand. Xavier studied him for a moment, and then voiced the other man's thoughts aloud: "He believes that the girl should be evaluated before any judgment is passed one way or another."  
  
"A test of character?" Doctor Strange asked. "I can arrange such a thing."  
  
"Afterwards, if she passes, she'll need to be trained," Iron Man said.  
  
Reed nodded.   
  
All eyes went to Charles.  
  
Charles looked slightly uncomfortable. "The Xavier institute exists to train and guide young mutants in the wise use of their powers. This girl is neither mutant nor human."  
  
"But you'll train her," Namor said.  
  
Charles met Namor's gaze. "Under the watchful gaze of Sentinel Squad O*N*E?" he asked.  
  
"Irrelevant. You'll train her because there is no other choice. Atlantis is no option here."  
  
"The Avengers aren't equipped for it," Iron Man added.  
  
"I can do even less for her than you," Doctor Strange said.  
  
Reed and Black Bolt said nothing.  
  
"You'll train her," Namor said, "Because the alternative is unthinkable. She needs to be in control of her powers, and she needs teachers accustomed to dealing with young people in her situation."  
  
Xavier sighed. "... I'll train her," he conceded.  
  
"It's decided then," Iron Man said. "Now, let us move on to our next order of business: the continuing fallout of the mutant Decimation..."  
  
It was a peace offering to Xavier. Everyone knew it. The minority of mutants who remained empowered were hardly a world-shaking affair, but no one objected.  
  
They owed him that much.  
  
\----------------  
  
A New World in my View  
by P.H. Wise  
A BtVS Crossover Fanfic  
  
Chapter 02: Learning the Ropes  
  
Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.

\----------------  
  
Xander had never been a fan of exercise. PE? Hated it, just like every other kid in the class. Sports? Unless you count swimming, not so much. Exercise had been an unpleasant thing to be avoided at all costs if entertainment could be found elsewhere. That had changed a bit when he began helping Buffy, of course - especially during the summer between the last school year and this one. Giles had put his foot down and insisted that even if they were going to be 'fray-adjacent,' they needed to have a bare minimum level of physical fitness lest they prove to be an outright burden to their resident Slayer rather than a help. Neither he nor Willow had much liked that, but they'd done what he asked, eventually. ... She nor Willow. ... and there it was again. She couldn't even go five minutes in the privacy of her own thoughts without coming back to the singular fact which had come to dominate every aspect of her existence: Xander Harris had been transformed into a girl. It took her a few moments to recover her train of thought after that one went ripping through her mental station.   
  
Exercise. He had never liked exercise, but he'd done it, once it had been made a precondition of his and Willow's continuing to help Buffy. But now, with little else to do, SHE found herself doing a surprising amount of exercising in the Fantastic Four's gym, and much to her surprise, it felt good. She'd mostly been doing cardio, and on machines designed for The Thing - she tended to break the other ones if she tried to use them, simply by weight alone. Today, she'd decided to try weights. There she was, Ben was spotting her on a bench press, and she in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts was bench pressing six hundred pounds with an ease that still made her giggle if she stopped to think about it. She managed thirty reps before her arms started to tingle pleasantly. At that she took a break for a minute, and then did another thirty. A break. Another thirty. It was surprisingly exhilarating. Especially with her ribs finally no longer sending horrific stabbing pain through her entire body every time she breathed.   
  
Not that the new body didn't have downsides. The first time she'd done the treadmill, Johnny and Sue had both been in the room. Kryptonian physiology meant that her breasts, despite their size, were far firmer than they had any right to be, but they still bounced painfully when she ran, and ten minutes into her exercise, she noticed that Johnny had stopped his own exercises and was openly staring at her in the wall-mirror.   
  
Sue had then taken her aside into the changing room and explained the finer points of sports bras, and showed her how to put one on. Xander hadn't gone back to exercising that day, and NEVER went in anymore if Johnny was present. ... but when she did go back, she went back wearing a sports bra underneath her t-shirt.  
  
It kind of worried her, actually. Not the sports bra thing, though thinking about wearing one still embarrassed her to no end. ... as did thinking about not wearing one. Or just thinking about bras in relation to her new female body in general. Or thinking about her new female body at all, when she wasn't also being overcome by sheer, overwhelming, all out panic. Or... okay, the point was, she was embarrassed. But it worried her, too. How good it all felt. The exhilaration she felt when she realized exactly how strong she was. She supposed that her attraction to her own body was a good sign. Or at least as good a sign as could be expected under the circumstances. But getting horny at the sight of your own reflection was so very much of the creepy. Not as creepifying as the actual sensation of feeling horny as a girl for what had been a teenaged boy not long ago, but generally creepifying.  
  
That wasn't the only problem, though. The big problem? Besides the fact that she was a girl at all? ... She couldn't swim. As Xander, swimming had been the ONLY physical activity she'd actually halfway enjoyed. Now? She literally could not swim. She'd tried that as her initial form of exercise: she'd sunk right to the bottom. Her body wasn't buoyant. She didn't remember Power Girl or Superman ever having this kind of trouble in the comic books.   
  
Stupid abnormally dense cellular structure.  
  
So now, a month into her stay with the Fantastic Four, Xander Harris - Karen Starr - headed back to the exercise room. She'd been feeling a little under for the last week or so. Mostly just tired, but there'd also been this annoying headache that wouldn't go away. She figured it was probably stress. She stopped off in the changing room. Undressed. Pulled off the boxers she'd finally convinced Sue to pick up for her.  
  
... She was bleeding.  
  
She was bleeding down there.  
  
Xander had attended sex ed. She knew what was going on. Knew she wasn't dying or anything. But despite knowing what it was, the intellectual knowledge of 'women have periods' and the direct experience of 'I'm having a period' are very different things. She took it about as well as might be expected.  
  
She took an unintended decisive nap.

\----------------  
  
"Reed, I'm going to tell you something, and I need you to tell me whether or not I'm crazy, all right?"   
  
Reed smiled faintly. "You're crazy," he said.  
  
"Very funny," Sue replied. "I'm serious."  
  
Reed nodded. "All right. Go ahead."  
  
"I've spent a lot of time with Karen over the past month," Sue began. "And she knows things about Earth culture that I would never expect an alien to know. Things that she could only know if she had been born here."  
  
"Or been programmed with the memories of a person who was born here," Reed said.  
  
Sue nodded. "Or that. But there are the damndest gaps in her knowledge."  
  
Reed raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"  
  
"She didn't realize that she'd need to support her breasts when she exercises. She had no idea how to put on a bra, but she knew what it was and what it was for." Sue pressed her lips together a moment. "And while she knew about the basic concepts of feminine hygiene, she had no idea how to actually apply them or deal with them, at all. I had to talk a seventeen year old girl through the process of dealing with her period yesterday."   
  
Reed felt mildly uncomfortable at that, but nodded, 'hmm'ing thoughtfully.  
  
"There's no way a seventeen year old girl hasn't had her period yet, but she acted like she'd never..." Sue trailed off at Reed's look of discomfort. "Honestly, Reed? Not the time." At his contrite expression, she went on. "Her body language is almost exclusively masculine as well." She paused a moment. "If she was programmed with the knowledge and memories of an Earth native, I think that native must have been a teenaged boy."  
  
"There are other possibilities," Reed said. "It could be that whatever world she calls home simply has different social roles for men and women. Much of what we see as set in stone about the sexes is the product of being raised in our society, and not an inherent quality of either sex. What we see as masculine behavior, they might well see as feminine. Or they may lack such categories altogether."   
  
"I know that, I just..."  
  
"Lacking additional information, your conclusion is the most likely," Reed acknowledged. A pause. "Is there anything I can do to help?"  
  
Sue shook her head. "Just... be aware of it. Keep it in mind when you interact with her. I don't think she's comfortable in her skin."  
  
Reed nodded. "Gender dysphoria," he murmured. "How very... human."  
  
Sue smiled faintly. "How very," she replied.  
  
\----------------  
  
One month and four days had now passed since her arrival. One month and four days stuck inside Four Freedoms' Plaza - on one particular floor, in fact - never seeing the outside world. Never seeing the sky. Never feeling the sun on her skin. Xander was beyond stir crazy, so when Sue asked if she'd accompany her on a shopping trip tonight, despite her utter disinterest in shopping, Xander all but leaped at the opportunity, if only to get out of the damn building for a while, and breathe air that wasn't conditioned and recycled.   
  
That was before the doors to Four Freedoms Plaza actually opened in front of her, and she stepped out into the New York city summer evening.   
  
The heat and the humidity hit her like a physical blow. Xander had taken a shower twenty minutes previous. She now felt like she needed another shower. Muggy. Hot. Awful. The air was utterly still, and its stillness only made it worse. Sue seemed not to notice. She just walked out and got into the waiting car like it was an everyday thing. And it was, Xander realized, an every day thing. For her. She became uncomfortably aware of a trickle of sweat running down her left breast. She grimaced, and then followed Sue to the car.  
  
Johnny Storm's voice greeted her as she slid into the seat and shut the door. "Hey Sue. Hello, gorgeous."   
  
"Johnny, be nice," Sue said.   
  
Xander tried not to grind her teeth.  
  
Johnny dropped them off thirty minutes later in a neighborhood that didn't look much like a commercial district. Xander frowned as the car drove off, and she looked to Sue questioningly. "Are you sure this is the right place?"  
  
"I'm sure. Come on, it's this way." Sue began to walk along the abandoned sidewalk, and Xander followed, if reluctantly.  
  
'This ... is vampire country,' Xander thought. 'This is dumb. Why is she taking me out here? Sue wouldn't lead me into a trap... would she?'  
  
Sue turned suddenly and stepped into an alleyway and out of Xander's view. Goosebumps stood up on her arms. Something was very wrong. It was cold. A thick fog began to roll out of the alley. Sue was gone. Finely honed Sunnydale instincts told her to run. Run now. NOW.   
  
Xander started to. Started to turn and sprint away. She didn't get more than three steps when a woman's scream of terror tore out from the alleyway, followed by a second and a third.   
  
Xander froze in her tracks, her thoughts racing. A woman was in danger. She wasn't a hero. She was fray adjacent! She was the donut monkey! She was... running towards the alleyway and cursing herself for a fool.   
  
A flare of intense light and heat from within the alley banished the fog, and instantly, Xander beheld a great demonic form seemingly made from fire and obsidian sending blast after blast of power over the cowering form of Sue Richards. Sue had managed to put up some sort of barrier around herself, but it was shrinking with every blast, and her screams echoed long and loud.  
  
Hating herself for being a fool, Xander scooped up a nearby trash can lid and flung it at the creature with all her might: it sent up a shower of sparks when it impacted, and was instantly reduced to molten slag. The creature turned to peer at the one who had dared to challenge it, and it laughed.  
  
 ** _"This is not your business, mortal. Come not between Dormammu and his prey, or he shall not slay thee in turn, but carry thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shriveled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."_**  
  
Xander swallowed heavily, and it didn't occur to her then that those words seemed vaguely familiar. Gathering her courage, she picked up the trash can and held it over her head. She knew it wouldn't do much, but it felt good to hold a weapon, even if it wasn't a useful one. "Sue, get out of there! I'll hold it off!" She swallowed nervously once more, and when she finished her statement, it was in a much less confident voice: "... somehow."  
  
A terrible wave of heat sent Xander scrambling back around the corner, and Sue screamed, "Don't be a fool, Karen! You can't do anything to something like this! Go! Run!"  
  
Xander strode forward. "Like hell!" she yelled, and threw the trashcan. It fared no better than the lid.   
  
**_"Very well, mortal. You have my attention. Remember, this was YOUR CHOICE."_**  
  
The demon charged her. Xander was hardly an expert combatant - she'd learned the bare basics and that was it, but even she knew that you don't stand there and take a charge from a ten foot burning demon thing. Simultaneously, she spotted a fire hydrant out of the corner of her eye. She waited as long as she dared, and then leaped out of the way... not quite in time. Dormammu clipped her, sending her spiraling into the wall, which dented visibly with the impact. She struggled for breath, and then yelled, "... Sue, you're kind of undercutting my heroic last stand here by NOT RUNNING FOR YOUR LIFE!"   
  
The fiery demon was rearing back for another blast, and Xander did the only thing she could think to do: she hit the fire hydrant as hard as she could. She HEARD the bones of her hand cracking. Felt agony racing up her arm. But her bones weren't the only thing that cracked: the hydrant had as well. Water pressure did the rest. The hydrant ruptured, sending a terrific gout of pressurized water into the surprised demon's face.   
  
Steam filled the street. Heat built upon heat. The night grew muggier, and then intolerably muggier, the air a thick soup of steam and mist.   
  
Coughing, Xander stumbled into the alleyway. She'd lost sight of Sue. Lost sight of the demon. There was a light source somewhere above her. "Sue!" she cried.   
  
Dormammu came charging out of the steam like a freight train, his fires extinguished, but not his rage. **_"You will DIE for your insolence!"_** it roared, its punch sending her flying back to the far end of the alley, sliding across the last six feet of pavement. ... Sue lay on the ground at the end of the alley, coughing, struggling to breathe in the thick steam. A door stood open close at hand. Xander might be able to get through it before the demon got to her, but if she did, then Sue was...  
  
Cursing herself once more, Xander did the right thing: she scooped up Sue and shoved her through the door, shut that door, and then turned to face the demon.   
  
**_"You would risk your life for a woman who has done all she can to contain you? Denied you access to the outside world before this night? Lied to you? Plotted against you with her team mates?"_**  
  
What would Buffy do? ... Xander knew just the thing. She glared at the demon. "Are you done talking yet? Because I have places to be." Despite the severity of the situation, and the agony of her shattered hand, she almost giggled.  
  
 ** _"So be it,"_** the demon replied. And then it smiled, and spoke in a much more kindly voice. "You pass the test, Karen Starr."   
  
All at once, the illusion faded. The damage to the alleyway faded. The pain in Xander's hand faded. The steam faded. The molten brick and concrete of the walls of the alley faded. The image of the demon vanished, revealing a man in a blue suit with black hair with two white stripes at his temples.   
  
The door at the back of the alley opened, and Sue stepped out, smiling.   
  
"... a test?" Xander asked.  
  
"You passed," Sue said.  
  
Xander stared at them both for a long moment. "... you have got to be kidding me," she muttered.  
  
The light from above descended, then. A man made of fire, and laughing with Johnny's voice. "Nicely done, hot stuff," he called. "I told them you were better than they gave you credit for!"   
  
The man of fire descended into the alleyway, but she scarcely noticed. There was... the strangest tingle in her body. The faintest feeling of... power, pulsing in time to the beat of her heart, scarcely noticeable beneath the righteous anger that she felt. "You set me up, made me think Sue was in danger of being murdered by a demon, made me think I was going to have to sacrifice myself to save her... as a TEST?"   
  
"We had to know," Sue said, shifting a bit guiltily.  
  
"A crude instrument, perhaps, but necessary," the man in the blue suit said. "I am Stephen Strange. I welcome you to New York, Karen Starr. I have heard much about you."  
  
Xander could feel it gathering in her limbs. Power building. Something was about to happen. Her anger built. She wasn't about to let her anger be defused without an apology. "You people are unbelievable!" she yelled. And then, instinctively seizing on the power she'd felt, she jumped straight up into the wild blue yonder, and took off into the night like a bat out of hell.   
  
She was FLYING. Wherever this power had come from, it was letting her FLY! Instantly, her anger was forgotten. She laughed a delighted laugh, seeing the city whip by below her. It took seconds to leave the neighborhood completely behind. Less than a minute to cross the whole island of Manhattan and alight on top of the Brooklyn Bridge. There, she laughed like a madwoman, her whole body tingling with power. Kicking off the bridge, she soared up into the air, spun, dove down to buzz vehicles crossing the bridge below, zoomed out over the East River, and...  
  
Dropped like a stone.  
  
She barely had time to let out a surprised yelp before she hit the water, and sank like the stone she had fallen as.  
  
She wasn't sure how much later it was when she came to, coughing and spluttering. Someone was carrying her. Someone female. She looked up into the black-masked face of a concerned looking woman with long blonde hair wearing... well, not a whole lot, actually. Skimpy black costume with a gold lightning bolt down the chest.   
  
"... th.. thanks," Xander managed.  
  
The woman deposited her onto a large pier on the Brooklyn side of the river. "You're lucky I was passing by, Miss," she said. "You're a mutant, right? You should know better than to fly over the East River of all places if you don't have full control of your powers."  
  
Xander wasn't exactly sure what a mutant was, but she nodded all the same, too mortified to argue. "... I didn't expect..." she began.  
  
"It doesn't matter what you expected, Miss. Do you know how many people drown in the East River every year?"  
  
"I didn't realize I'd be landing in corpseapalooza," Xander muttered defensively.   
  
"And you're too heavy to be much use at swimming, so it's doubly stupid. I don't want this to happen again, got it?"   
  
Xander sighed, resigning herself to be lectured. "I got it. It won't happen again."   
  
The woman nodded. "Be careful out there. Some people don't react well to the sight of mutants outside of the Xavier grounds. I'd escort you back there myself, but I'm already late for a meeting. Can I trust you to go straight home?"  
  
Xander nodded. "Straight home," she repeated.  
  
The woman nodded once more, then lifted off into the air, and flew off towards the horizon.  
  
Xander let out a long, slow breath, and then shuddered. She'd almost DIED. If that woman, whoever she was, hadn't...   
  
Ugh.  
  
The immediate crisis behind her, the events which had precipitated it rushed back into her thoughts, and she scowled, particularly when her very first thought was to return to the Baxter Building. "... Call me untrusting," she said to the still muggy, still uncomfortably warm night air, "But I don't think going back to the people who wanted to test whether or not I'd sacrifice my life for one of them is the best idea just now."   
  
Shivering in the hot air, far more exhausted than she'd ever been in her life, dripping wet from head to toe, her shoes squishing with every step, Xander - Karen - turned and walked off into Brooklyn to find a place to wait out the night.

\----------------  
  
Morning came earlier than Karen would have liked. Xander. Whatever. It hardly mattered right now. She'd just spent the night in a homeless shelter, and after breaking the bed she'd tried to use, she'd wound up just sleeping on the floor. The 85 Lexington Avenue Women's Shelter. She'd found it after wandering the streets of Brooklyn for three hours, and the people there had been kind, had given her a place to shower and to sleep. Come morning, the girl who called herself Karen Starr almost felt human again.  
  
But it was only for the night. Stretching, blinking owlishly, Karen Starr walked out into the morning light.   
  
When the sunlight hit her skin, she let out a gasp of sudden pleasure. It felt AMAZING. Better than almost ANYTHING. Better than the Sock Puppet of Love, even. ... well, almost. "Great googily moogily!" she exclaimed, provoking dirty looks from some of the other women who were leaving the shelter with her.  
  
So caught up was she in the pleasurable sensations provoked by direct sunlight upon her skin, in the feeling of power that it produced as her cells began the slow process of recharging their solar batteries that she failed to notice the other event brought on by her exposure to sunlight: motes of light gathering around her, coalescing into a ghostly shape behind her.   
  
Karen walked forward, grinning almost drunkenly. "Wow," she all but giggled. "Just... wow."  
  
And then the ghostly shape passed through her, gained definition, and resolved into the image of Power Girl; insubstantial as the mist, but undeniably present. She looked around suspiciously, glared at Karen, and then said, "Two questions for you, blondie: one, who the hell are you, and two, what the HELL do you think you're doing with my body?!"  
  
Karen stared. "... Er..." she began awkwardly. "It's... not what you think?"  
  
 ** _End Chapter 02_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know he's quoting Tolkien. Doctor Strange is aware that he is quoting Tolkien, too.


	3. With Great Power...

A New World in my View  
by P.H. Wise  
A Marvel Comics Crossover Fanfic  
  
Chapter 3 - With Great Power...  
  
Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.  
  
\-------------------  
  
Karen stared incredulously at the image of Power Girl floating in the air before her, sunbeams illuminating her translucent body in strange ways. "P... Power Girl?!"  
  
Power Girl kept right on glaring. "My body," she said with exaggerated patience, "Stolen by you. Explanation. Waiting for. "  
  
"I..." Karen began. "I didn't..." She struggled to recover her composure, completely failed, and kept on going, "I didn't do it on purpose!"  
  
"Thanks," Power Girl replied. "That's helpful. A complete stranger is running around in my body, doing God knows what with it, but hey, at least she didn't do it on purpose! I'd thought that when we dealt with Ultra-Humanite, I'd be done with this sort of nonsense!"  
  
The girl who still thought of herself as Xander Harris's eyes widened slightly at that. "Wait, that was real?"   
  
Power Girl's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What was real?"  
  
"The comics. You and Ultra-Humanite. Terra getting her brain swapped. Ridiculous cheesy suitors from outer space?" Karen's voice dropped in volume, and she blushed as she said the next bit: "... Pregno-rays?"  
  
Power Girl glared. "How do you...? Comics?! How do you know about all of that?! I never told ANYONE about that stupid ray."  
  
It suddenly occurred to Karen that everyone on the street was pointedly not looking at her, and doing their level best to avoid her gaze. She flushed red. "... I'm the only one who can see you. Aren't I?" It wasn't a question. "Great. Stuck as a girl in some weird alternate dimension, and now having an argument with an invisible friend that only I can see. Isn't it funny how the earth never opens up and swallows you when you want it to?"   
  
The sight of a young mother edging her five year old child away from the crazy girl as they made their way down the street was her only reply.  
  
Ten minutes later saw Karen walking back across the Brooklyn Bridge, trying not to look down into the river that had nearly claimed her life the previous day. The sunlight still felt amazing, but somehow having a ghostly Power Girl that only she could see badgering her constantly took the shine off of things. “Look, I told you,” Karen said, “I don’t know how I wound up in your body! Hey, how do you know isn’t my body transformed into one that matches yours? Huh? … yeah, ok, so that’s not likely.” She grimaced, ignoring the people who were staring at her as she crossed the bridge. “There was a bet, and I lost. I had to dress up as you for Halloween. One minute I’m in Sunnydale being a responsible student and doing my civic duty chaperoning a bunch of kids, the next I’m falling from the sky into this weird not-comic-book-land that’s like if they took all the real comic book heroes, and then filed all the names off!” She paused a moment. “Like the Fantastic Four. They’re like... like someone was totally impressed with the success of the Justice League of America, and just threw together a group of random knockoff superheroes to try to capitalize on the...”  
  
Power Girl didn’t seem amused. “Are you actually thinking about what you’re babbling, or is that just a stream of random syllables coming out of your mouth that only happens to resemble speech?”  
  
“Hey!” Karen said, faking a hurt tone to her voice, “I don’t babble! … I run on. Every now and again I yammer.”   
  
“Then you’re yammering a hell of a lot. Whatever. So I get that you’re just some random girl who dressed as me for Halloween...” Power Girl trailed off. “Hey, why is dressing as me a punishment for losing a bet?” She looked nonplussed. Then she frowned. “... are you a guy?”  
  
Karen blushed red.   
  
“I don’t believe this. I get that men want my body, but I didn’t think they wanted it like THAT!”   
  
Karen blushed a deeper shade of red.  
  
“Though aren’t there easier ways of turning yourself into a woman? Between magic, hormones, surgery, super science...”   
  
… and Karen moved clear past embarrassment into full blown mortified. … until she noticed Power Girl’s slight, almost imperceptible smile. “... You’re messing with me.”  
  
Power Girl grinned. “I’m messing with you,” she confirmed. “We really do need to figure this out, though.” She considered Karen for a moment. “What’s your name, anyways?”   
  
“Karen Starr,” Karen replied.   
  
Power Girl raised an eyebrow, and waited.  
  
“... Xander Harris,” Karen said, all but sinking into the heels of her shoes as she walked. “Look, I just want to find a way to go home and go back to normal, OK?”  
  
Power Girl nodded. “On that we agree. I’d say it was a pleasure to meet you, but under the circumstances...”  
  
“Understandable,” Karen said. She looked down at the pavement. “... So what now?”  
  
Power Girl met Karen’s gaze, her expression serious. “Tell me everything that’s happened since you arrived here. Everything.”  
  
She did.  
  
\-------------------  
  
Karen’s stomach was growling. She didn’t have a penny to her name, and her stomach was growling. She knew it was even more hot and miserable today than it had been yesterday, but she didn’t **feel** it anymore. She felt... comfortable. Pleasant. The warmth of the sun on her skin drove away the feeling of hot mugginess and left her... well, it would be better if she weren’t hungry, anyways. The smell of pizza was almost overwhelming. She gave a long, longing look towards the pizza place on the corner. Stupid enhanced sense of smell. … Stupid EVERYTHING, actually. “Your powers suck,” she muttered.  
  
“Not my fault you’re not woman enough to handle them,” Power Girl replied cheerfully.   
  
“... Aren’t I supposed to be super everything? How come I can’t fly?”  
  
“You can.”  
  
“Liar.”  
  
“No, seriously. You can. You just have to want to.”   
  
Karen frowned. “... Whatever. I’m hungry, I’m tired, and I’m broke. Yay me.”  
  
Power Girl rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a baby. Another couple of days exposure to sunlight, and you won’t get tired anymore. A couple of months, and you won’t need to eat or sleep, either, unless you want to.”   
  
“I won’t last a couple of months if I’m dead of hunger before I get there,” Karen snapped.   
  
“It must be so difficult for you, not having eaten since dinner yesterday. Yep. Pretty much on the brink of starvation.”  
  
“Sure,” Karen said. “Mock my pain.”  
  
“Excuse me, miss?”   
  
Karen turned at the unfamiliar voice. A man in blue jeans and a t-shirt. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Tall. “Yeah?” she asked.  
  
“... Who are you talking to?”  
  
Karen glared. The man backed away. And then her stomach growled. Loudly. “... it’s not really stealing if we’re starving, is it?” Karen asked.  
  
“I don’t know,” Power Girl replied. “Tell you what - you get towards starvation and we’ll talk about it.”  
  
“... How am I supposed to..”  
  
“Geeze, you whine a lot,” Power Girl said, interrupting Karen.  
  
Karen shut her mouth and kept walking. Five minutes later, she’d left the smell of pizza behind her. She was approaching a small square with a lovely little fountain full of pennies at the bottom of a long, broad stairway that led up to a savings and loans branch she didn’t actually recognize. Other side of the street was shops. Shops, shop, shop. Yay shops. It was cruel, she decided, to walk past so many shops filled with useful stuff (and not-so-useful stuff) when she had no money and no way of getting it that didn’t involve crime.  
  
“... Maybe I should go back to the Fantastic Four,” Karen muttered.  
  
Power Girl shrugged. “Maybe you should.”   
  
Karen scowled. “... No. They set me up. Ambushed me as part of some weird test. Wanted me to be willing to die for one of them. That’s not something a friend does to a friend.”  
  
“You’re the one who brought it up,” Power Girl pointed out.  
  
Karen opened her mouth to reply, but whatever she might have said was lost: at that moment, there was a tremendous crash, and people came running out of a nearby bank.   
  
Karen jumped, looked towards the bank, looked around, and kept walking.  
  
Power Girl’s eyes narrowed. “What do you think you’re doing?”   
  
Karen blinked. “... huh?”  
  
“It’s a bank robbery! Happening right in front of you!”  
“...yeah? So?”  
  
“So you’ve got my powers! You’re not up to full strength, I admit, but there’s a crime happening right in front of you, and you’ve got the ability to do something about it, and you’re walking away?!”  
  
Karen rubbed the back of her neck. “Er... isn’t that something for the police?”   
  
Another crash, followed by more screams, and then the distinct sound of a bank vault door being ripped off its hinges.  
  
“Xander...” Power Girl said warningly.   
  
“You want me to go stop a bank robbery?” Karen asked, still not quite believing the other girl.  
  
“GET IN THERE AND STOP IT!”   
  
“All right, all right! I’m going!”   
  
Somewhat belatedly, Karen rushed through the doors of the bank. … only to take a thrown bank vault door to the face. She went flying back down the steps and onto the street. Someone screamed. And then she got back up. “Ok, THAT was uncalled for,” she said. And then she picked up the vault door and threw it back the way it came as hard as she could. It went flying through the remains of the entrance to the bank and there were several loud crashes as it smashed through who knows how many internal walls.  
  
“XANDER! You can’t just throw a bank vault door! You might have KILLED someone!”   
  
Karen’s eyes widened. “... you said I needed to do something!”   
  
“NOT THAT!”   
  
There was a sound like tearing metal, and then half of the vault door was shoved back out of the bank entrance, followed immediately by a tall man in a green and black striped shirt, carrying an enormous backpack bulging with cash.  
  
“Get him?” Karen asked.  
  
“Get him!” Power Girl confirmed.  
  
That was all she needed.  
  
The Sandman had known SOMEONE was out here - bank vault doors don’t just throw themselves - but the tall blonde girl in wrinkled jeans and an equally wrinkled t-shirt wasn’t what he was expecting to charge him. He barely had time to react.  
  
Karen hit him hard. So hard he lost his grip on the backpack he’d only had half-on. The strap tore, and the backpack went tumbling off even as he slammed into the stairs leading up to the bank, leaving a crater.  
  
No cape. No mask. Just some girl. “... So,” he said, rising back to his feet, eyes narrowed. “Mutie girl thinks she’s a hero?”  
  
“People keep calling me that,” Karen muttered. Then she raised her voice. “You. Bank robbing. Me, here to stop. Got it?”  
  
Sandman laughed. “All right, girl. Let’s see what you’ve got.”  
  
Battle was joined. Empowered by what sunlight she had managed to absorb in the last hour and a half, Karen was an unsubtle fighter. Not that she’d ever been particularly subtle - or even skilled - back when she’d been Xander. She knew the bare basics, and it showed. She went all out, charging him and attacking him again and again. Driving him back towards the bank. Smashing the stairs completely to rubble in the process. People were running and screaming, but there wasn’t any sign of police sirens yet.  
  
And then Sandman stopped playing around: his fist visibly hardened into massive spiked pile-driving things, and he started to hit back. His first blow send Karen flying into the building across the street and through the wall of a clothing shop, sending brick and mortar spraying in all directions, with people screaming and continuing to run.   
  
Karen had landed headfirst in the lingerie section of the shop, and had to swipe several bras off of her head to clear her vision. Then she got up and flew back at him, zoomed under his fists, and hit him as hard as she could.   
  
His flesh was sand. It gave. Her fist came out the other side. And THEN his body solidified.   
  
Karen’s eyes widened as she tugged on her arm, trying to wrench it free. “Er...”  
  
Sandman grinned.   
  
“Can we talk about this?”  
  
“Sure.” A pile-driver fist hit her in the face, and it HURT. Another one smashed into the top of her head, forcing her downwards. Then another cratered the sidewalk she was standing on. Another. Another. Another. Her world momentarily dissolved in a haze of pain. Then the ground gave way beneath her, and she fell into the subway track.  
  
“Ow.”   
  
No train coming. That was good. Grimacing, Karen rose to her feet. “Damnit...” she muttered, and flew back up out of the hole. Sandman wasn’t looking in her direction, so when she ripped a street light out of the ground and started using it like a mallet in an enormous, psychotic game of whack-a-mole, he was taken completely by surprise. First blow squashed him flat. He reacted to the second: He dispersed, reforming next to her... and took a street light to the side of the head, dispersed, reformed, dispersed, reformed, dispersed, reformed behind her, struck her in the back, and off she went, plowing through two vehicles before coming to rest on the hood of a third.   
  
“OK,” Karen muttered. “The ‘charge in and fight’ plan isn’t working very well. Got another one?”  
  
“... it usually works for me,” Power Girl replied, feeling a little embarrassed. “Charge, fight, smash, laugh in the face of danger.”  
  
“Yeah, I’m more of a ‘laugh in the face of danger, and then run away’ person, myself.”  
  
Sandman frowned. “... Are you talking to yourself?”   
  
Karen opened her mouth to answer, and got a blast of sand to the mouth for her trouble, which knocked her back and sent her into a coughing fit. “That’s cheating!” she managed, spitting out sand as best she could.  
  
“You picked this fight, mutie. You don’t get to complain about my methods.”   
  
Karen charged again, this time delivering a spectacularly unskilled kick to Sandman’s midsection. … Or trying to. He caught her leg in mid-kick, grabbed onto her foot with his other hand, and began to smash her repeatedly into the ground head first a dozen times, leaving a dozen craters in the street. “Ow, OW, OW, damnit!” she hissed. “This isn’t...” She ducked under another punch. “Working!” Yet another blow sent her plowing into the side of another vehicle.  
  
Her clothes were getting torn pretty spectacularly, and Karen didn’t like that one bit. So she picked up the armored car that had been parked out in front of the bank and threw it at the Sandman.   
  
It missed. By six meters. And crashed into a fountain, the doors were ripped off of their hinges, and money tumbled out into the water.   
  
“... Ooops,” she said.  
  
“You know,” Sandman said, “You’re really bad at this. Amateur hour is over, kid. Why don’t you go home and tell your mom all about it?”  
  
Karen glared.  
  
“... you have got to be kidding me,” a woman said from somewhere above. Karen looked up, and spotted what was quite possibly the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen looking down from the roof of a building: long white hair, green eyes, a stunningly gorgeous face and figure, and clad in an incredibly revealing skin tight and bosom-baring black leather catsuit.  
  
Karen’s mouth went dry. Her eyes widened.  
  
“Pay attention, kid. Uncle Marko’s gonna teach you a thing or two about fighting.” Accompanying the words came a fist to the face. Or would have.   
  
At that moment, Karen whirled around to face the Sandman, and her system flush with hormones from being more than a little turned on by the sight of the woman in black. She felt heat. And then it was blazing out from her eyes in a blast of incandescent radiance.  
  
Sandman’s attack didn’t stop. Her heat vision struck him full in the arm; the arm was instantly fused to glass. The glass shattered into a million pieces as he uppercutted her with the force of a semi.   
  
Karen went flying.   
  
“Oh hell...” the woman in black had time to say before Karen collided with her, bowling her over and nearly crushing her - would have crushed her, if not for the reinforcements built into her suit.   
  
“Um... hi,” Karen managed, staring at the beautiful woman she’d landed on.  
  
“... get off...” the woman in black groaned.   
  
Karen’s thoughts went wild. “... Here? Now?”   
  
“... get off of me...”   
  
“... Oh.” Karen rose to her feet, blushing like hell, stumbled a bit, reached out to steady herself on the roof with her left hand, and accidentally punched a hole in the roof of the building. “Oops.” Then, her balance regained, she reached out to help the woman in black back to her feet.   
  
The woman in black took one look at the hand, another at the hole in the roof, and stood up on her own. “Your villain’s getting away,” she said.  
  
Karen blinked, and rushed to the edge of the roof just in time to spot the Sandman dash into an alleyway. She tensed her legs to jump after him... and then the sound of sirens filled the air. Startled, she lost her balance and fell off the building, crushing yet another car.  
  
The woman in black looked down and shook her head as Karen climbed out from the wreckage of the car and tried to get glass out of her hair. “Wow...” she called. “You’re... pretty bad at this. You sure you really want to be doing this?”   
  
Karen glared up at the woman. “No! But... what else could I do?”  
  
The woman shrugged. “If you say so. Hey, good luck, kid! … You’re gonna need it. I’d totally give you a comforting hug, but you’d probably just get off on it, and you’d probably break my ribs.” She winked, and then she was gone.   
  
The police pulled up a moment later, and even as Karen turned to face their vehicles, a dozen officers leveled their weapons at her. “Put your hands in the air!” one shouted.  
  
It was then that Karen realized that her fight had turned a functioning block of the city into... rubble. Mangled metal. Shredded cars. Buildings missing walls. The steps leading up to the bank completely pulverized. Sand everywhere. Glass everywhere. Armored car in the destroyed fountain. Water still fountaining from the shattered fire hydrant she’d been punched through.   
  
“Um...” she began. “... oops?”  
  
The police were strangely unimpressed.  
  
\-------------------  
  
“Do you know how much trouble you’re in, miss?” The police officer was large, well muscled, and bald as an egg, and even though she knew that she could break him into pieces with one hand tied behind her back, Karen was kind of intimidated.   
  
“Look, I didn’t do it on purpose...”  
  
“Yeah, yeah. You’re lucky we didn’t sic the Sentinels on your ass. It’s in your best interest to cooperate. Sandman is a known criminal. An accomplice of his - even a really incompetent accomplice, is going to be in for a rough time.”  
  
“I’m not his accomplice,” she snapped.  
  
The cop gave her a flat look. “Not his accomplice?” he echoed. “You weren’t helping him to destroy an entire city block to send a message to the city?”  
  
“NO!”   
  
“It wasn’t your intent to cause MILLIONS of dollars in property damage?”  
  
“NO!”  
  
“You were trying to stop him? Make sure nobody got hurt?”  
  
“YES!”  
  
“Then you didn’t try hard enough!” the policeman roared. “You caused more property damage than he did!”  
  
“... not on purpose,” Karen replied, and even she knew it was a weak excuse.  
  
She was in a police interrogation room. The bald officer was pacing back and forth like a caged animal. Power Girl’s ghostly image had vanished when the police had shown up, and Karen hadn’t seen her since.  
  
“Twelve people are in the hospital! You’re lucky nobody’s dead!”  
  
Karen shrank into her seat. “... I’m sorry,” she whispered.  
  
That only seemed to make the cop angrier.  
  
It went on like that for almost an hour. Hashing and rehashing her story, the cop not believing her, questioning her on the tiniest little details, occasionally muttering about how she was an ‘irresponsible mutie freak,’ and generally being less than pleasant company. It became clear fairly quickly that the cop wasn’t getting what he wanted from the interview, and that only made him more hostile.  
  
Finally, a knock came at the door, and the bald officer went to answer it. Then, scowling, he turned back to her. “You’ve got friends in high places. Someone’s here to see you.” He left the room.   
  
A moment later, Ben Grimm strode into the room in all his rocky glory.  
  
Karen’s cheeks flushed with fresh shame at the sight of him.   
  
“Hey kid,” he said. He didn’t bother trying to sit down.  
  
“... Hey,” she replied.  
  
“Heard you gave Sue and Johnny the slip, tore up a bank.”  
  
“I didn’t do it on...”  
  
“Purpose, yeah, I know.”  
  
Karen sighed. “... I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”  
  
“Reed says ya need training. I think he’s right.”   
  
Karen nodded. “I'm not likely to get it if they nail me to the wall.”  
  
“Well, about that. See, when I came here, I didn’t actually come alone. Reed and Sue pulled in some favors. We’ve kind of got this deal worked out for you with the cops if yer willing to take it. Up to you. We pay for the damage you caused. You get probation and go to this school for training people like you. In return, they don’t prosecute you for mass destruction of property. Sound good?”  
  
Karen swallowed heavily. “... why would you do that for me after...”   
  
“What, after that test? Yeah, that was pretty stupid of em. There are better ways of finding out what sort of person you are than that.” Ben shrugged. “Ain’t important. What matters is the offer’s open, if you’re willing to take it.”  
  
Karen thought about it for a long moment, and then sighed. “I don’t think I have a choice.”  
  
“You always have a choice, kid,” Ben said.  
  
She didn’t have anything to say to that.  
  
“Right,” Ben said. “Then get out there into the hall and meet your new teacher.”  
  
With reluctance, Karen rose to her feet. The door opened. She stepped out. The bald cop looked like he’d eaten a lemon, and the sight made her want to smile - she might have, too, if the situation hadn’t been what it was. Three blonde girls in the hall, next to...   
Her eyes fell upon her new teacher.   
  
“Karen Starr, meet Emma Frost.”  
  
Karen stared, and when she spoke, she could only say, “...Shpadoinkle!”  
  
Some things never changed.  
  
 ** _End Chapter 03_**


	4. The Xavier Institute

There were any number of things Karen had expected from the 'Headmistress of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning.' Emma Frost wasn't one of them. Here she'd been expecting some kind of severe, sexless, Nordic Minerva Mcgonagall. ... Two out of four wasn't bad, right? She stared at the woman, eyes wide, like a deer staring into the headlights of an oncoming car. Emma's lips curled into the faintest of amused half-smiles. "So you're my newest student, then? Very well." She looked to the bald police officer. "I trust everything is in order, Sergeant?"  
  
The sergeant didn't meet her gaze. He was too busy staring at her chest. In his defense, she was wearing an amazingly skimpy white costume which involved not very much fabric at all, and poorly concealed beneath a stylish white cloak. After a moment, he tore his gaze away. "Just go," he muttered.  
  
"Very good," Emma said. "Girls? We're leaving." Without another word, she spun smoothly on her heel and made for the exit, head held high, acting for all the world as if she owned the place. Maybe she did: nobody tried to contest the claim made by her body language. The triplets followed, and after a moment's hesitation, Karen did as well.  
  
A car was waiting in front of the police station. Surprisingly unremarkable, in light of the woman who had arrived in it. Emma Frost and the triplets went to the vehicle. Karen lingered behind.  
  
"You OK, kid?" It was Ben Grimm's voice. He’d followed them out, and now stood at the entrance to the police station, a few feet away from Karen.  
  
Karen turned to look him in the eye, opened her mouth to say... something. She wasn't sure what. It died on her lips.  
  
"Yeah," he said. "Figured it was something like that. Look, I ain't so good at that mushy stuff, but if you ever need to talk to anyone, give me a call, ok?"  
  
Karen struggled for a moment, trying to find the words she wanted. Struggling to give voice to the enormity of her situation. To her anger and frustration and fear at being stuck in another world, and another body. Struggling to find the words to voice her gratitude towards Ben. Her regret for how badly she'd messed up. Her lingering anger at his team mates. She wanted to say, 'I need to tell you a few things...’ She wanted to say, 'thank you for everything. She wanted to say, 'You've been a friend when others haven't.' But what she said was, "... See you around, Ben."  
  
"Yeah," he said.   
  
She got into the car, shut the door, and sank into the leather seat as Emma Frost took her away to the next stage of her new life.  
  
\---------------  
  
A New World in my View  
by P.H. Wise   
A Power Girl crossover fanfic  
  
Chapter 4: The Xavier Institute  
  
Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.  
  
\---------------  
  
The car came to a halt in front of a shop on Madison Avenue. Karen felt a moment of confusion. Why were they stopping? She looked up at the sign: Chanel. It meant nothing to her. The mood in the vehicle had been... subdued. Somber, even. There hadn't been any occasion to speak, and neither Emma nor the triplets had said a word. But now... "Um, excuse me, Miss Frost? Why are we..."  
  
Emma met Karen's gaze. "You have nothing to wear but the clothing you have on, correct?" At Karen's nod, she went on, "Celeste, Irma, and Phoebe are going to assist you in acquiring a new wardrobe."   
  
If the triplets had seemed passive before, they were indignant now. "What?" the first asked. "Why do we have to," the third said, "Babysit the new girl?" the second finished.  
  
Emma gave them a level look, and they relented. "... Fine," they said in unison. Then three sets of eyes turned to Karen. "Let's get this over with."  
  
Karen grimaced. Shopping. This was going to be ugly.  
  
 _Twenty minutes later..._  
  
"Absolutely not," the triplets said in unison. "We don't know how you managed to find the one store on Madison Avenue that sells tacky Hawaiian shirts, but the answer is no. "  
  
Karen frowned. "Hey! I like Hawaiian shirts!"   
  
"They're a travesty. An offense against nature. We draw the line here."   
  
Karen grumbled under her breath, but relented, putting them back on the rack. A few minutes later, she was in yet another store, looking through the available boxers.   
  
"No boxers," one of the triplets said. Irma, Karen thought, but she couldn’t be sure.  
  
Karen raised an eyebrow. "What? What's wrong with boxers?"  
  
The triplets exchanged long-suffering looks. And then they told her. Karen's expression went quickly from irritated to thoroughly embarrassed. "... Oh," she said. "... explains why I've been getting major wedgies every day for the last month..."  
  
The Three-in-One stared incredulously at Karen for a long moment. "Mother is punishing us," one said. The other two nodded in agreement.   
  
Karen glared.  
  
Finally, after two hours, ten arguments, and six fervent wishes that the ground would open up and swallow them to relieve them of this torture, Karen and the triplets walked out to the street to meet Emma's car once again, each carrying several shopping bags full of clothing. It had been like pulling teeth, and several times they had attempted to resort to mind control only to be stopped by Emma Frost's observing presence, but it was done.   
  
The car pulled away from the curb, and began the long journey through traffic out of the city to Westchester County. They arrived just before nightfall. Before them lay the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. ... or what was left of it.  
  
Karen's first impression of the place was cemented by the security checkpoint in front of the school... manned by a giant, ominous robot. It was visible long before the school was, and Karen couldn't help but stare. It scanned the car in turn, and then, after a brief conversation with the driver, stepped aside, allowing the car to continue. A second security checkpoint waited just inside of the main gates, this one manned by soldiers. Karen stared out the window, her eyes wide as the car made its way down the long driveway to the mansion which housed her new school. It was damaged, and repairs were under way. Extensive construction efforts were being made. New buildings going up. Scaffolding was up all over the place. But that wasn't what drew Karen's attention: what drew her attention was the military encampment on the outer edge of the campus, the giant robots patrolling the grounds, and the refugee tents set up all over the place.   
  
It seemed less like a school and more like an ethnic ghetto. Every joke she'd been ready to make upon arrival died on her lips.   
  
The car stopped. The doors opened. Emma Frost and the Stepford Cuckoos rose gracefully from their seats, stepped out of the car, and made their way to the doors of the main building, and Karen followed close behind, feeling small and lost.  
  
\---------------  
  
Noriko Ashida - Nori to her friends - looked up as the doors to the mansion swung open. Hmm. Miss Frost was back. The Cuckoos, too. And... someone new. New faces. A pang of sorrow ran through her at the thought. New faces.  
  
… So many old faces gone...  
  
She shook her head, as if the motion would shake loose the sadness she felt. Figures that whatever new student Emma brought in would be another blonde. Tall, too. Gorgeous. And stacked. And way more muscular than she had any right to be with a bust that size. ... and looked like she could be Miss Frost's niece. A little less aristocratic, a little more... she wasn't sure what. Nori frowned thoughtfully, and exchanged glances with Laura. They'd been heading down the main staircase together when the door opened. "Hey Mindee," she called. "Who's the new girl?"  
  
Emma kept walking. The new girl stopped. The girl identified as Mindee turned. “You know that’s not my name,” she said.  
  
“Sorry. Irma.”   
  
Irma nodded. “Nori, meet Karen. Karen, this is Nori." 

Phoebe gestured to the other girl, "And that's Laura. Don't try to wake her up in the morning."  
  
Nori managed not to grimace at that, and Laura blushed.   
  
"Er, I know I'm gonna regret asking..."   
  
"Shut up, Phoebe," Nori said simultaneously with Phoebe saying, "She stabs people."   
  
"... Right," Karen said. "Nori, Laura, I, uh, it's nice to meet you."  
  
"You too," Nori said, not really feeling it. When Emma beckoned the new girl to follow her upstairs, Nori felt more relieved than anything else. Too much was happening, too quickly. A month and a half ago, more than 90% of the world's mutant population had spontaneously become human, herself not among them. Sentinel Squad O*N*E stationed there 'for their protection.' The school grounds filling up with every mutant refugee from here to the moon. They called themselves the 198. Someone decided that was how many mutants were left in the world. … It wasn’t true, though. There were plenty more than that. Just... not enough.   
  
Forty two dead students.   
The memorial was today. Was it selfish that after forty two former students had died, Noriko was just glad that Prodigy was being allowed to stay? Forty two of her friends were dead, but her depowered boyfriend was being allowed to stay. Did she have any right to be happy over that?   
  
She'd been on her way to see him, actually, when the door had opened to admit Miss Frost and the others. She shrugged apologetically at Laura, and then headed down the stairs and further into the mansion, where she knew he was waiting.  
  
For Noriko Ashida, a new student barely rated as a blip on the radar.  
  
\---------------  
  
Karen followed Emma Frost into her office with a sense of growing trepidation, more and more unsure that coming here hadn’t been a huge mistake. The door shut. Emma walked to her desk and sat down and looked at Karen for a long moment. “All right, Mister Harris. What am I going to do with you?”  
  
Karen felt a stab of panic shoot through her. “Erk!” Emma’s slightly amused smile did little to comfort her. ‘Oh God, she knows!’ she thought in a panic.  
  
“You do not shield your thoughts well, Mr. Harris,” Emma said. “Why don’t we just pretend that the first thing you did when you walked into my office was to confess the entirety of your absurd situation, and take it from there?”  
  
Karen tried very hard not to stare at Emma Frost. Emotions raced beneath the surface of her skin. She felt humiliated. Ashamed. … A little bit turned on. More than a little, actually. Damnit. She’d thought that linoleum-induced horniness would have gone away when she turned into a girl. ‘Oh God. What am I gonna do? Gorgeous mind-reading woman? I still think about sex every other second! … Pi. Pi R squared. Naked girls. Naked women. Naked Miss Frost...!’ She began to panic as the frantic imagery flitting through her head only grew worse.   
  
Emma raised an eyebrow. “Do stop thinking those sorts of things about me before I turn your brain off,” she said.  
  
Karen giggled nervously. “Er... yes. Stopping. Right away. Right now.” ‘Damnit!’ “You know that if you turned my brain off, I’d probably tip forward and fall through the floor, right?”  
  
“We have some very good carpenters and flooring specialists on retainer,” Emma replied dryly. “But down to business, Mr. Harris. Though you are not a mutant, Charles Xavier made a promise to have you trained at his institute. Considering your lack of control over your powers and their destructive potential, I am inclined to agree that training is needed. But that does not mean I will allow you to endanger my students. They have been through a great deal of trauma this past month, and I will not have you add to it, am I understood?”  
  
...Emma was kind of scary. “Yes, ma’am,” Karen managed, sounding (and feeling) suitably cowed.   
  
“Good. None of us has the luxury of being a child anymore. You least of all.”   
  
Karen didn’t glare, but she did feel a flash of anger. “I’m not a child,” she said.   
  
“Are you an adult?"   
  
Karen didn't answer. Couldn't answer. She felt a sensation like pins and needles crawling through her brain as she stood before the gaze of the telepathic headmistress of the Xavier Institute.  
  
"Of course you aren't," Emma answered for her. "You've never really had to take responsibility for anything in your life. You've never needed to. It's perfectly understandable: under normal circumstances, seventeen year old boys are not expected to be particularly responsible." Calm. Collected. Hard as ice. Karen shivered under Emma's gaze. "But these are not ordinary circumstances. Not anymore. You are not a boy any longer, and neither are you human. You have been given a body with a potential for power that astounds even me. The Fantastic Four saw that. They kept you away from the thing which empowers you for over a month while they attempted to discover your quality. And then they put you to the test, and you passed, only to run away in a childish rage once you realized what they'd done."  
  
"Hey, that's not fair!" Karen was about to go on, but Emma interrupted her.  
  
"No, it's not," Emma agreed.   
  
"What kind of friend puts someone to the..." Karen trailed off, "No, it's not?" she echoed, confused. "You're agreeing with me?"  
  
"It isn't fair," Emma said, "But life rarely is. Do you think life has ever been fair to mutants? Or to..." She met Karen's gaze. "The Slayer?"  
  
"Stay out of my head," Karen tried to growl. It came out as more of a whimper.   
  
"Do you think for a moment that Buffy Summers asked to be made into a freak and an outcast just so that the rest of you could have the chance to live the sort of life that would allow you to never need to know about her, or the sacrifices she made?"  
  
"Buffy has nothing to do..."  
  
Emma cut her off again. "And then there was your disastrous attempt at foiling a bank robbery," she began, "During which you and the Sandman, between the two of you, destroyed an entire city block."  
  
"I didn't mean to," Karen insisted.  
  
"No, you didn't. And that should illustrate my point. You caused more destruction than the bank robber, and **you didn't mean to.** "  
  
Karen fell silent. There was nothing she could reply to that.   
  
"But what if you had meant to?" Emma asked. "What if all the potential of your body had been given to someone worse? Someone like The Master? What might he have done with your new body?"  
  
"... once he got it up to full power, there’d be no stopping him," Karen conceded.  
  
"Hence the need of the test, however imperfectly executed."  
  
Karen was silent for a long moment. "It's not like I came up with the idea of trying to stop a bank robbery on my own," she said.  
  
"You refer to the original consciousness of the body you now inhabit," Emma said.   
  
Karen's eyes widened. "Original consciousness?" she asked, not really sure she wanted to think about the implications of that particular statement.   
  
"I did tell you," Power Girl said, her ghostly form emerging from Karen's body. "And for what it's worth, Xander, I'm sorry about the bank robbery situation. I never should have pushed you to intervene. I..." she shrugged uncomfortably, "I have this annoying habit of acting before I think."  
  
Emma looked amused. "Then it appears you have something in common. Power Girl, I presume?"  
  
Power Girl looked up in surprise. "You can see me?"  
  
"I'm a telepath," Emma replied, as if that explained everything. After a moment's thought, Karen realized that it kind of did.   
  
"I'm reasonably certain that I know what Mr. Harris wants." Emma went on, "But what do you want?"  
  
Power Girl frowned. Her track record with telepaths wasn't exactly a good one, and even in her ghostly form, she wasn't altogether sure that Emma couldn't just rip the thoughts out of her, or make her respond however she wanted without her ever knowing the difference. Still, she answered as honestly as she could: "I want my body back, and I want to go home."   
  
"What price would you pay to see it done?"  
  
Power Girl eyed Emma Frost distrustfully. "I'm not about to hurt innocent people, if that's what you mean," she said at last.  
  
"And you include Xander Harris under the category of 'innocent people?'" Emma asked.  
  
"Yes," Power Girl replied without hesitation.  
  
"Good," said Emma.  
  
Karen suddenly remembered to breathe. "... had me worried," she muttered.   
  
"Very well, Mr. Harris. Power Girl. You may stay. Whether you tell the other students the truth of your situation or not I leave to your mutual discretion. You will attend classes here, you will undergo the same training as everyone else, and you will obey our rules, and in return, we will train Mr. Harris in the use of your powers. If you can not do these things, tell me now."  
  
Even after all that, Karen WANTED to tell Emma Frost to go to hell, and she KNEW that Emma Frost knew it. But instead, Karen sighed. "... I don't have a problem with any of that," she lied.  
  
Emma smiled a humorless smile. "Good."  
  
\---------------  
  
The memorial service happened that evening, after sunset. The dark seemed appropriate. Forty two dead students. Dead because one man believed that he was special. Believed that God had chosen him. The mood was as somber as Karen had ever experienced, and for once she didn't feel any urge to try to lift it whatever. She stood in silence as the faculty and students told stories of the people they'd lost. But it wasn't just about grief. Regret was the common denominator. If she hadn't already had such a vivid reminder of her own fallibility already today, Karen would have been... unkind to these people. These people who, in their friends' hour of need, when those friends had lost the very thing they had always been told made them special, had abandoned them, sent them away. Later, as she was moving her newly acquired wardrobe into her new room - a room she was going to be sharing with some girl named 'Surge' - she gave voice to her thoughts.  
  
"I'm supposed to learn from these people?" she asked incredulously, not really expecting an answer.  
  
"Yeah," Power Girl replied, stepping out of Karen's shadow. "You are. In more ways than one."  
  
"Oh," Karen replied. And then she understood. "Oh!"  
  
"Yeah," Power Girl said. She paused. She had something to say, but she needed a moment to decide whether or not to say it. Then, at last, she said, "... Kal told me something, once," she began.  
  
Karen felt a jolt of excitement at that. "Kal as in Kal-L?" she asked. "As in... Superman? Your Superman?"  
  
Power Girl nodded, and Karen felt her sympathy for the other girl rise. "I don't know how much of his history you learned from those... comics you say are written about us," she began.  
  
"About Superman? Just the basics. His real name is Clark Kent. He grew up in Smallville, Kansas. His parents are Jonathan and Martha Kent...."  
  
Power Girl looked annoyed. "OK, so you know enough to completely destroy the life of any particular version of Superman," she said.  
  
"Er... I guess I never thought of it like that."  
  
Power Girl sighed. "It's not your fault. But getting back to the subject, I had a full blown Kryptonian education when I arrived on Earth, and I landed as an adult. But Kal? He showed up as a toddler, and he didn't know **anything**."  
  
Karen nodded. "Until all those years spent beneath the yellow sun woke up his powers." And then Karen felt like an idiot. "... yellow sun...?" She giggled. "I'm dumb. I can't believe I..."  
  
Power Girl gave Karen a sidelong look. "Can't believe what?"  
  
"I spent all that time trying to figure out why I didn't have your powers, and..." Karen shook her head. "Never mind. Go on."  
  
"So yeah, he didn't grow up as Kal-L. He grew up as, well, as Clark Kent. He didn't even know he wasn't human until he started to manifest his powers!"  
  
As Power Girl - Kara - continued to talk, Karen, as carefully as she could, reached out to open the closet door.  The handle broke off in her hand. Sighing, she stuck a finger through and cleaned out the remains of the mechanism that allowed it to stay shut, let it swing open, and then began to put her various shirts (and the occasional blouse, picked out by the Cuckoos) up onto clothes hangers.   
  
"What I'm trying to say is, he wasn't this savior from outer space. He was a kid from Kansas. I stepped out of my ship Kara Zor-L, but he..."   
  
Karen paused her activity to look at Kara. "I get it," she said. "It wasn't being an alien that made Superman the hero he was.  It was being human. Right?"  
  
Kara nodded. "That's part of it.  He was who he was because he grew up a human. It wasn't Jor-L who made him into the man he was - it was John and Mary Kent. And once, when I was feeling lost, like I didn't know who I was, and people wanted me to be him, and ..." Her voice was thick with emotion now, and Karen found herself wishing that she could put a comforting arm around the intangible girl. "He said that I was the one who would decide what I would become. Not him, not the reporters, not all the people who wanted me to be something I couldn't.  Me." Kara met Karen's gaze, then. "While you're here, you might feel like you're pulled in a dozen different directions, but remember: you're the one who decides what you become."   
  
Karen smiled. "Thanks, Kara," she said, and she meant it.  
  
"There's something else, too. Something more."  
  
Karen waited.  
  
“... He said I was the most human person he knew.”  
  
Karen smiled, and for a few moments, neither of them said a word. And then Karen looked down. "I'm not Superman, Kara.”  
  
"Neither am I," Kara Zor-L replied.  
  
"And we already established that I'm bad at this 'being a hero' thing..."  
  
"We've established that you're untrained," Kara corrected. "And Kal wouldn't expect us to be Superman. But we can sure as hell be the best damn Xander Harris and Kara Zor-L that we can, right? He believed in me, so how can I do any different?"  
  
Karen couldn't find the words. Everything she could have said came up lacking. "I..." She cut off when the door suddenly opened, and the blue-haired Asian girl Karen had met earlier came walking into the room. She looked tired. Tired and sad.   
  
"Thought I heard voices," Nori murmured. "There's not anyone else in here, is there?"  
  
Karen shook her head. "Just me. I talk to myself, sometimes. It's kind of a bad habit."  
  
"Right," Nori said. "You're Karen, right? I'm guessing by the whole 'you being in my room' thing that you're my new room mate."   
  
"Yeah," Karen managed, struggling to push away the weight of the conversation she'd just had. "You're Nori, right?"  
  
"Noriko, actually, but don't let that stop you." She paused a moment. "I guess I should make with the greeting, you being a new student and all.  I doubt we'll get many more, after everything that's happened."  
  
Karen nodded. "I'm sorry for your loss," she said.  
  
Noriko shrugged uncomfortably. "Thanks," she said. She glanced over at the new bed on the opposite side of the room from hers and raised an eyebrow. Thing looked like it was built to house the Juggernaut. "Gotta say, the bed’s kind of an eyesore," she commented.  
  
"What?" Karen asked, then followed Noriko's gaze. "Oh. Yeah. That's the bed. Probably seems like a bit much, but... Karen Starr, five hundred and twenty pound girl, at your service." She made a bow with an overly elaborate flourish.   
  
"Increased physical density, huh? That's cool." She glanced towards the windows, which were covered by new, very heavy curtains. The big dark, heavy curtains that let in no light whatever. "...The hell?"  
  
"Ah,” Karen said, “Er, I’m trying to avoid too much exposure to sunlight?”  
  
Noriko shook her head, "Right. Forget I asked." She grabbed some clothes to sleep in out of her dresser, headed over to the bathroom, and shut the door. The distinct sounds of the brushing of teeth and changing of clothes filtered through to Karen's increasingly sensitive ears. After a few minutes, Nori came back out, this time clad in a pair of shorts and a tank top... and her metal gauntlets. "So, you don’t like sunlight, you weigh half a metric ton, and you talk to yourself. Anything else I should know?"  
  
Karen briefly debated correcting Noriko, telling her about how sunlight fueled her powers, how she was having a hard time controlling them. She didn’t, but she thought about it. "Sounds like everything to me," she said.  
  
Nori flopped down onto her bed, and Karen started putting away her things again. Five minutes passed in silence, and for a little while, Karen wondered if Nori had fallen asleep. Then Nori asked, "You got a code name yet?"  
  
"Code name?" Karen asked.  
  
"Yeah," Nori said. "I'm Surge, for example." She held up her gauntleted hands as evidence, "I absorb electricity."  
  
'She's trying not to cry,' Karen realized suddenly. "You're not really interested in this conversation, are you?"  
  
Nori looked down. "Sorry. I just..."  
  
"Hey," Karen said, "I understand. I've lost people, too." She was thinking of Jesse. ... Jesse, who had once been just as close as Willow... and just like that, Karen felt a deep, desperate loneliness and homesickness rising up within her chest. Were Buffy and Willow still alive? Was Giles? God, she wished, she wished... "Everyone's lost people,” she said.  
  
Nori nodded, scrubbing stubbornly at her eyes.  
  
"If you need anything," Karen began.  
  
"I... thanks, Karen."   
  
Karen nodded. "Any time."  
  
Afterwards, once all her things were put away, Karen took a long shower, spending a good ten minutes letting the warmth of the water soak into her skin.  It still felt wrong. Her hair was getting longer now. No longer boy-short. Water cascaded down her breasts, and it worried her how good it felt. She wondered if... and then she brought her hands up to experimentally cup her own breasts, and it felt better than she'd imagined it would. She might have gone further if she hadn’t known that her roommate was in the room outside the bathroom. … or if Kara hadn’t poked her intangible head inside the shower, glowered at her disapprovingly, and asked, "You're not doing anything perverted with my body in there, are you?"  
  
She sighed, finished her shower, and got ready for bed. Tomorrow, her classes began at the Xavier Institute. Tomorrow, she would meet the rest of her classmates in a context that wasn't the funeral of more than forty of their friends. Tomorrow she would begin to learn how to control her powers.  
  
Karen was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.  
  
 ** _End Chapter 4_**


	5. The Calm Before

**_New Earth  
Antarctica  
Thirty Five Days Ago_**  
  
Power Girl - Kara Zor-L - stood facing her duplicate. Her clone. The two of them faced off in the antarctic wilderness, snow whirling around them, neither paying it the slightest bit of attention, every bit of their awareness locked on the other. Except for the jet black hair and the black sports bra with black PVC pants and combat boots combo, the other girl was identical to Kara in every way.   
  
“Hey,” Power Girl said.  
  
“Hey,” the clone replied.  
  
“Are you a clone?”  
  
“Not exactly.”  
  
Kara’s eyes narrowed. “I can see that. The black hair is a bit off the mark.”  
  
The clone smirked. “Yeah. I think my boss wanted to put his own spin on it. But I’m you in every way that counts.”  
  
And she was. God, the expression on her face, even the way her hair fell? Identical. Kara raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”  
  
The clone didn’t. “Yeah.” And then Kara shot up into the air to avoid the absurdly powerful blast of heat vision that the clone had just sent out. And battle began between the two daughters of Krypton, and the earth did tremble beneath their feet. They fought across the antarctic wilderness, their battle taking them halfway across the continent and back, and then to the laboratory beneath the ice where the clone had been born.   
  
Kara grimaced as the black-haired clone flew her head first and backwards through tank after tank of failed clones before driving the back of her head six inches into the concrete wall at the far end of the complex. It took her a moment to recover her bearings, but the clone allowed her that moment. She stood up. “You’re not bad at all. You got a name?”  
  
The clone grinned. “Divine.”   
  
“Pleased to,” Kara kicked off from the wall, rocketing towards Divine at break-neck speed, fist first. “MEET YOU!” she impacted, driving the other girl into the opposite wall and reducing it to rubble.   
  
Things might have gone different. A plan was already under way to extract Divine from the situation. Her boss was watching. Ready to intervene. About to intervene. If it weren’t for the actions of one man in a parallel world far removed from this one. A man who called upon the primal powers of Chaos, Transition, and Change to do his bidding.   
  
He called it Janus, but it was so much more. A thing beyond time and space and the barriers which mortals called ‘the walls between realities.’ Ancient and timeless, terrible in wrath, a bit petulant, and often extremely annoying - particularly to the Man of Steel.  
  
The ceiling split down the middle as an angry red tear in the fabric of space and time ripped into being directly above the brawling pair. Reddish lightning crackled from the tear, bolts striking first Kara and then Divine and joining them to the mystical circuit. The world went white, and when it faded, both the girls and the rip were gone.  
  
A moment later, the door leading deeper into the complex opened with a hiss, and a very ordinary looking man with short brown hair stepped into the room, frowning deeply. “Well,” Max Lord said. “This could be a problem.”

\-----------------  
  
A New World in my View  
by P.H. Wise  
A Buffy Crossover Fanfic  
  
Chapter 05: The Calm Before  
  
Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.  
  
\-----------------  
  
The whole world seemed ablaze. Fire raged across the wreckage, the crackling of the flames mingling with the screams of the injured and the grieving. Every now and again, a limb could be glimpsed, half-crushed beneath the remains of the bus.   
  
“This can’t be happening...” Noriko kept repeating, shaking her head in denial of the carnage, “This can’t be...”   
  
She spotted a body, and the bottom dropped out of her as she recognized it. “Oh, no...” she lifted a chunk of metal off of it and cast it aside. “Andrea...” The girl in the pink dress lay still amidst the burning wreckage. Still and dead and awful.   
  
“HELP!” Noriko screamed. “SOMEONE HELP ME!”  
  
The world faded to white.  
  
Noriko sat up in bed and shuddered. The nightmare was still there. Every time she slept. Sometimes it matched the event. Sometimes it was her, or David lying dead under the rubble. Everything was... everything was wrong. Nothing was the way it was supposed to be. Professor Xavier’s dream was dead. Sentinels stood guard at the Xavier Institute now. ‘For their protection.’  
  
It had taken a few days for things to really sink in. That this was how their lives were going to be now. A little over a month since everything had gone so horribly wrong.   
  
Noriko rose to her feet, then, headed into the bathroom, stripped off the sweat-soaked clothes she’d slept in, turned on the shower, and stepped inside.   
  
Ten minutes later, feeling a whole lot more human (or mutant, depending on who you asked), Nori came back out clad in her bathrobe. It was dark. The thick, heavy curtains allowed not even the tiniest glimpse of sunlight. She glanced towards the bed on which her new room mate was still sleeping, looked to the curtains, and then muttered, “Fuck it. I want to feel the sun on my face.”   
  
She walked to the curtains and drew them open, filling the room with the light of the morning sun. She stood there at the window, then, looking out onto the grounds of the Xavier Institute. Watching the repairs. Watching the new construction. Watching the graveyard with its fourteen brand new headstones: fourteen formerly mutant children whose parents had refused to take them back even in death.  
  
She didn’t feel sad, looking at it. She didn’t feel anything. Not about the deaths. Not about the fate of mutantkind. Not about the Sentinel she could see from her window. She felt... numb.  
  
A moan from behind her broke her out of her apathetic trance. Then a second. And then something did pierce the armor of her apathy: surprise. The expression on Karen’s sleeping face had become one of contentment. ...and that didn’t sound to Nori like an ‘I’m sleepy and you’re letting sunlight shine on my face’ type moan. That was more of a... no way.   
  
Nori turned to stare at Karen. A thought occurred to her, then. She reached out and closed the curtains. Instantly, Karen stopped shifting, her moans ceased, and she settled back into a relaxed sleep.   
  
And now a second emotion joined the first: incredulity. “No fucking way,” she muttered.

\-----------------  
  
When Karen woke up that morning, she woke to an empty room. Noriko was gone, which suited her just fine. She briefly considered just going back to sleep, but no, today was her first day at the Xavier Institute, and even if classes hadn’t resumed from the Summer break yet... and probably wouldn’t resume for a while to come considering everything that was going on, actually... well, she was still going to be training with instructors to master her powers, and...   
  
Karen woke up for the second time an hour later. Her clock read 9:00 AM. She staggered out of bed and made her way to the bathroom.   
  
“I know, I know, but what else am I supposed to do?” It wasn’t a voice Karen recognized, and when she looked around, she couldn’t find its source. She frowned briefly, and then dismissed it from her mind.  
  
Looked like the shower had been used. Probably before she’d woken up for the first time. She looked in the mirror and grimaced. She had one of the worst cases of bed-head she’d seen in a long time. Time to shower. Clothes came off. Water turned on. She stepped in.   
  
“You should start shaving, by the way,” Kara said.  
  
Karen nearly jumped through the ceiling. Literally - her head’s impact she left a significant dent in it. “GAAAH! YEEEEGH... Don’t DO that!”   
  
Kara laughed. “Sorry, but you really do need to start shaving. That’s MY body you’re in, and you’re not maintaining it properly.”  
  
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not actually growing any facial hair, so why would I need to...” Karen grimaced, and looked down at her legs. “Oh,” she said. A pause. “... Can we not talk about this right now?”  
  
“When would you prefer to talk about it?”  
  
“Oh, I don’t know. How about never?”  
  
“Come on, Xander. It’ll be easy.”   
  
“Liar.”  
  
“I’m not going to stop bugging you until you agree.”  
  
Karen tried very hard not to grind her teeth.  
  
Fifteen minutes later, Karen walked into the cafeteria, clad all in thick clothing with heavy gloves to minimize her contact with sunlight. Very little of the cafeteria wasn’t exposed to direct sunlight, but she’d agreed to the training regimen Emma had proposed, and she wasn’t about to back out just because avoiding direct sunlight was inconvenient. She picked up her food and sat down. Her hearing had been wonky all morning. It had started with just that one voice, but there had been more on the way down to breakfast, and now, with twenty or so students eating in the cafeteria that had been designed for over a hundred, she was trying NOT to hear every single conversation in the room in perfect clarity. Of course, the other students weren’t the only thing she was trying to ignore.  
  
“Come on, Xander,” Kara said as Karen sat down. “What’s the big deal? All I’m asking is for you to shave my legs for me. It’s not like I’m asking you to shave my...”  
  
“OOOKAY,” Karen interrupted, “That’s... more than I needed to hear. I...”   
  
Those blonde triplets were staring at her from the next table over. Karen waved nervously. “Don’t mind me,” she said. "Just being crazy. Talking. To myself. Not to anyone else.”  
  
“That’s funny,” one of them said, and Karen had no idea which one. “We thought you were talking to the other consciousness in your head.”  
  
Karen’s eyes bugged out. “Is EVERYONE at this school a telepath?” she asked weakly.  
  
“Not everyone,” the triplets replied in unison, picking up their trays and moving to join Karen at her table. “You remember our names, right?”  
  
“Uh...”  
  
“Irma,” said Phoebe, “Celeste,” said Irma, “And Phoebe,” said Celeste. Then, with identical expressions of amused mischievousness, they said in unison, “You’ll have to guess which is which.”  
  
Karen sighed. “Right. Nice to meet you, again. I’m...”  
  
“Xander, we know,” they said, even as she finished with, “...Karen, when we’re in public,”  
  
A brief, uncomfortable pause. “All right, Karen,” Celeste said. “Will you introduce us to your other consciousness?”  
  
“Girls, this is...”  
  
“Kara,” Kara said, interrupting Karen’s intended word choice.   
  
“Right,” Karen said, recovering smoothly. “Kara, these are Celeste, Irma, and Phoebe.”  
  
Karen’s ears pricked, then. Her room mate was in a conversation across the room, but to her ears, they might as well have been speaking right next to her.   
  
_"Wait, Nori, are you seriously telling me that her mutant power is that she has an orgasm whenever she's exposed to sunlight?"_  
  
Wait, what?   
  
_"I'm just telling you what it looked like," Noriko replied._  
  
‘OK,’ Karen decided. ‘This day officially can’t get worse.’  
  
“Don’t say that,” Phoebe said.   
  
“Pretty sure I didn’t,” Karen replied a bit bitterly.  
  
 _“... Wow.” That was the girl with the mercury skin._  
  
 _“I know, right?” There wasn’t much inflection in Noriko’s voice. The emotion that should have been there was muted, somehow._  
  
“You know what I mean,” Phoebe said. Irma and Celeste nodded in agreement. “You should never hand the universe a line like that,” they finished in unison.  
  
 _"That must be..."  
  
"Pretty embarrassing, but not dangerous. Why do you think they brought... Seriously, Cessily?"_  
  
“I’m not the universe’s buttmonkey,” Karen said. The Cuckoos cracked a smile at that.  
  
 _“What? Don't tell me you're not jealous, too! Girl's got the Best Power Ever!"  
  
Noriko sighed audibly. Then another girl spoke up. “What are we talking about?”  
  
“The mutant power to orgasm whenever you’re exposed to sunlight, apparently.”  
  
“I thought that was called Ecstasy?”_  
  
“... OK,” Karen conceded, blushing so deeply red that she seemed almost purple, “Maybe I’m the universe’s buttmonkey.”  
  
The cuckoos laughed in unison. “Don’t feel bad, Karen. At least you’re not one of the New Warriors.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
The Cuckoos exchanged glances. “Never mind,” said Celeste.  
  
\-----------------  
  
“Well? What do you think?”  
  
Scott Summers, known to the world as the mutant ‘Cyclops,’ considered the tape - minus sound - of Karen Starr eating lunch in the cafeteria. He’d only just finished experiencing the memory of her accidentally destroying her closet door about a minute previous. He looked thoughtful. “Interesting,” he murmured, then looked Emma in the eye. “A blatant invasion of privacy, but interesting.”  
  
Emma rolled her eyes. “Karen Starr may have the luxury of privacy when she is no longer unintentionally a threat to the other students,” she replied.   
  
Scott considered that, then nodded reluctantly. “She doesn’t have trouble with ordinary tasks unless she’s consciously thinking about them?”  
  
“That would be my assessment,” Emma said. “And it gives me a few ideas for how to train her.”  
  
“Danger room?” Scott asked.  
  
“Danger room,” Emma confirmed.  
  
\-----------------  
  
 _ **Danger Room  
Xavier Mansion**_  
  
Karen stood in what looked like a traditional dojo. It was generic. Every little detail stood out in its unremarkableness: the way each mirror panel was the same generic mirror panel, each mat the same generic mat, each board in the wooden floor exposed past the mats the same generic board. The overall effect was a place that was clearly a dojo, but not a dojo that any human being might have built.   
  
A tall man with brown hair and blue eyes shimmered into being in front of her, clad in a clean white gi but otherwise unremarkable. Generic.  
  
“OK, I admit your holodeck is really cool, but how is learning kung fu going to help me?”  
  
Emma’s voice filtered through the speakers from the control room, “All right, Xander. I want you to punch the hologram in front of you. Strike him hard as you can.”  
  
Karen looked uncertain and uncomfortable. “... Er, couldn’t we start with breaking boards?”  
  
“It’s a hologram, Xander. It’s not real. Now hit him.”  
  
Karen shrugged uncomfortably, stepped forward, and hit the man in the face.  
  
Her fist went through his skull like it wasn’t even there. The skull split open like an over-ripe melon, and a spray of bone and brain and blood went flying out what used to be the back of his skull. The body collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Very little of its skull was still connected to its body. The vast majority now lay sprayed out onto the floor.   
  
Karen stared, utterly horrified, her hand trembling and coated with gore. “... what... what the hell was that?!”  
  
“That,” Emma replied in a quiet voice, “Is what you can do to a human body if you aren’t careful. A crude demonstration, perhaps, but necessary.” The blood vanished. The corpse vanished. An identical man in a white gi appeared in front of Karen. “I’ve reset the scenario. This time I’ve want you to strike him in the face without killing him. Should you apply enough force to kill an unaugmented human being, your target will vanish, and then the scenario will reset. Training begins in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...”  
  
Karen struck the man, and he immediately vanished. She sighed.  
  
Some days, she really hated her life.  
  
\-----------------  
  
Day passed into day, and week into week, and Karen’s control of her powers began to improve. Exercise followed exercise. First the ‘punch, but don’t kill.’ Then moving into fights against enemies the X-Men had faced in the past, which must be defeated without killing them: a test of Karen’s ability to control her strength in the heat of battle.   
  
Now she was learning how to meditate. With a big blue furry. Karen still wanted to giggle every time the thought occurred to her, but she’d managed to not actually act that desire after actually spending more than five minutes in Beast’s presence.   
  
“Clear your mind, Miss Starr,” he told her.   
  
Karen tried. That was the problem. ‘Learn meditation,’ they said. So she dug in her heels, grit her teeth, and tried to meditate. ...which all but guaranteed that she’d never actually meditate.  
  
“Relax your body. Feel your face relaxing. Feel your shoulders. Let the tension drain from them. Feel your arms. Your elbows. Wrists. Fingers. Relax...”   
  
She became uncomfortably aware of the cushion beneath her. Of the lotus posture she had put herself into. Her whole body tingled with energy, and she felt an uncomfortable heat behind her closed eyelids, but she remained. She struggled. And finally, she began to relax.  
  
“Don’t think. Listen. Feel your breath as you breathe in, breathe out.”  
  
Her breath felt like a hurricane in her lungs. She felt like the big bad wolf: she could huff and puff and blow the whole damn house down. Or freeze it solid. Or...  
  
“Silence your mind. If thoughts recur, simply allow them to pass without comment, and return to silence. Breathe in. Breathe out...”  
  
His voice was almost hypnotic now, and at last Karen settled into a state of relaxation. ...which lasted for all of a minute before her foot began to cramp. “OW, OW OW!” she yelped, and tried to stand up. Not used to the lotus posture, she tripped over her tangled legs and fell flat on her face.   
  
Beast helped her up, and he was smiling. “You did better than I on my first attempt to meditate after the manifestation of my secondary mutation,” he said.  
  
She nodded. “Thanks. I guess, I guess I’ve never really been the meditating type.”  
  
“And what do you suppose is the meditating type, Miss Starr?”  
  
She didn’t have an answer for that. “I... I don’t know,” she said honestly.  
  
Beast smiled, exposing his sharpened lower canines. “The beginning of wisdom is the admission of one’s own ignorance,” he said. He gestured towards the door. “Come, it’s time to meet with Ms. Frost. I believe she intends for you to begin training with the other students soon.”  
  
As Karen followed Beast out of the room, Kara made her presence known once more. “Not bad,” she said. “Better than me, anyways. I suck at meditating.”  
  
Karen didn’t reply.  
  
“Oh, come on. Not going to talk to me just because someone else is in the room?”  
  
“Yeah, silly me,” Karen said under her breath, “Being tired of talking to you in public and making everyone around me think I’m crazy.”  
  
Beast’s ears pricked, and he looked her way, an eyebrow raised. “Talking to whom?”  
  
Kara laughed.  
  
Karen sulked.  
  
Beast, hovering somewhere between bemused and puzzled, continued on his way to Emma Frost’s office.  
  
\-----------------  
  
 _ **New York  
Earth 616  
Today**_  
  
Divine woke up at the bottom of a swimming pool. For a moment, she thought that she’d blacked out during the fight, but a swift look around showed her that Power Girl was nowhere in sight. And neither was the lab. She kicked off the bottom of the pool, trying to go airborne. All she managed was to break the surface. She sucked in a great, heaving breath before she sank back down to the bottom. She felt... drained. The sunlight filtering through the pool was recharging her, but she had NEVER felt this drained before. Admittedly, she’d not really felt much of anything before, but still. It took a few more frantic leaps to grab another gulp of air before she had absorbed enough sunlight to fly out of the pool, and when she did, she went straight up into the afternoon sun, water streaming off her body.   
  
It felt good to be alive. Good to...  
  
New York. She was in New York. Max had shown her this place, but... it looked different. More run down. Grimier, somehow. Granted, New York had never been the pride and joy of the United States the way Metropolis had, but still...  
  
It looked off.  
  
No matter. She landed on the roof of a skyscraper which bore the words, ‘Daily Bugle.’ There, basking in the light of the yellow sun, Divine stretched out her hands, as if embracing the sky.  
  
Her first priority had to be to reestablish contact with Max.   
  
He would know what to do.  
  
 **End Chapter 05**


	6. Crusade, Part I

“Look around you,” he said, his voice filled with the perfect confidence of one who knows he does God’s will. The crowd filled the auditorium, many bearing signs proclaiming their opposition to the devil’s children. ‘No mutants,’ one proclaimed, ‘Their extinction is the will of God!’ read another. “And know that this is but a handful of God’s children, those who have heard the call, and will do his will upon the Earth!”  
  
The crowd roared. The preacher in his black suit had never felt so powerful. His deep, sonorous voice rolled out across the crowd, and united in zeal, they cried out in agreement, “Praise Jesus! Hallelujah!”  
  
“The Lord watched as the seeds of Satan gained strength and claimed our world,” the preacher said. “He patiently waited for his children to rise up and fight the forces of evil... but we did nothing. And Eden fell.”  
  
“Have mercy, oh Lord!” a woman cried out.  
A man nearby followed a moment later with, “Lord God, forgive us our inaction!”  
  
“Now God has given us one last chance to make right what we’ve allowed to go so very wrong. Now you must decide what you will do. Do you stand with God and with those children of God you see around you to end Satan’s reign, or do you turn your back on the Lord once again? For there can be do doubt that the Day of Judgment is at hand!”  
  
Power. It filled the room. Filled the preacher. The holy spirit power was in him now, and in the crowd. They cried out for their salvation, and he would give it to them. If God was on their side, who could stand against them? Mutants? How laughable.  
  
He smiled as only one whose conscience is utterly clean can smile. God had spoken, and William Stryker would be the instrument of his vengeance.

\-----------------  
  
A New World in my View  
by P.H. Wise  
A New X-Men Crossover Fanfic  
  
Chapter 06: Crusade, Part I  
  
Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. Some dialogue from this chapter comes from ‘New X-Men’ #23 and #25. Marvel owns that, too.

\-----------------  
  
“Um, hi. I’m Karen.” It was funny how easily that lie came to her now. She didn’t even hesitate anymore. Emma Frost had called her in to introduce her to the new squad of X-Men that she was going to be training with in the immediate future, and it was awkward. Most of the girls in the squad were the ones who had been gossiping about her in the cafeteria a few weeks back. ...and that had been when people started singing, ‘Sunshine on her shoulders gives her happies,’ to the tune of the John Denver song. The boys she had seen around, but had never actually been introduced to.  
  
“What’s your code name?” Noriko asked.  
“What’s your power?” one of the boys asked almost at the same time.  
  
Several of the girls turned red with embarrassment.  
  
“I...” Karen looked to Kara, who stood at her side albeit invisible to the rest of the team, then to Emma.  
  
“Power Girl,” Kara said, as if it were obvious.  
  
“Ms. Starr has the ability to absorb solar radiation and to use it to supercharge her physical capabilities,” Emma said. “The potential applications of this power are quite extensive, but for practical purposes, she is extremely strong, tough, and fast, can fly, possesses a healing factor, and can release concentrated blasts of heat.” Her gaze flickered to Kara for a split second before moving back to the new X-Men. “She will be operating with the code name, ‘Power Girl.’”  
  
The same girls who had blushed stared wide-eyed.  
“... Oh,” said Noriko.  
  
Emma didn’t quite smirk. “I suppose you expecting something else, Ms. Ashida?”  
  
Noriko blushed deeply. “No, Ms. Frost.”  
  
“Good. Now why don’t you introduce yourselves?”  
  
“I’m Josh,” said a boy with golden skin. “Code name: Elixir.”  
  
“Laura,” said an intense looking girl with long, dark hair. The others waited for her to give her code name. She didn’t give one.  
  
“She’s X-23,” Josh said.  
  
Laura didn’t deny it.  
  
“Name’s Santo,” said the boy made of rock. “But my code name is Rockslide.”  
  
“Julian,” said another boy. “Call me Hellion, though, or I’ll kick your ass.” That last he delivered with a grin and a wink.  
  
“Cessily,” said the girl with mercury skin. “Code name: Mercury.”  
  
The girl in the full length hijab spoke last. “My name is Sooraya,” she said, not projecting her voice. “If it pleases you, you may call me Dust.”  
  
“Um,” Karen began awkwardly. What does one say in a situation like this? “Nice to meet you all?”  
  
Some rolled their eyes. Some smiled. Emma’s expression changed not at all. It was the strangest thing, though. There, in that room, just for a moment, Karen felt... accepted.  
  
She smiled.  
  
“You have an hour,” Emma said, “And then I expect you all to meet me in the Danger Room. Karen, stay a moment.”  
  
The others filed out, some looking back at her, some not.  
  
Karen looked to Emma.  
  
“I’ve been discussing your training with Kara,” Emma said. Karen’s blinked in surprise, but Emma didn’t stop. “While we each agree that your control has vastly improved, we do have some concerns. Some of the children you will be training with are no more durable than an ordinary human. Can I trust you not to cause them harm?”  
  
The weight of Emma’s statement took a few seconds to sink in, and then Karen felt like she’d been kicked in the chest. She met Emma’s gaze. “I won’t hurt them,” she said.  
  
Emma held her gaze for a long moment, and when Karen didn't’ look away, Emma nodded. “I believe you.” A faint glimmer of a smile. “Which brings me to the other matter Kara and I have been discussing...”  
  
She produced a small remote control and pressed a button. A closet door slid open, revealing a mannequin with Karen’s proportions dressed in a skin tight white and blue jumpsuit. “It occurred to me that if you are to be training with the team, you are in need of a uniform. I had this altered for you: its previous owner no longer needs it.”  
  
Karen ruthlessly quashed her initial reaction: one of injured masculinity and not wanting to be seen in something like that. Emma was making a gesture, and once she got past that initial knee-jerk response, she smiled a genuine smile. “Thank you, Miss Frost,” she said, and meant it.  
  
“Go. I’ll see you in the Danger Room in one hour, Power Girl.”  
  
Karen took the uniform and left, and Kara followed on her heels.

\-----------------  
  
William Stryker knelt in prayer. He was alone, with naught but him and the altar and the presence of the Lord. “I thank thee, oh God, for the gifts thou hast given me,” he said, speaking as if to an audience - and so he was; the man had never learned to pray but that it were a performance; his was a style of prayer that played at speaking to an audience of One, but the one he performed for was himself. “For thy help and thy comfort, I give thee thanks. For the purifiers who do thy will, I give thee thanks. Praise be to God.”  
  
He had received a new vision: in order to secure the bounties of paradise for his people, another needed to die. God had told him so, and William Stryker was not one to question the will of God. Not when it was spoken so clearly. The question of murder never entered into it, not now, and not when he had ordered his purifiers to bomb the bus carrying those children away from the Xavier estate: he possessed the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The laws of man could never stand before the laws of God; God would judge, and when that time came, William knew that he would be found as one washed in the blood of the lamb.  
  
“Oh Lord God, thee alone we acknowledge as God and King, thee we invoke as our helper. From thee we have obtained our victories, through thee, conquered our enemies. Thee we thank for past favors, from thee we hope for future favors. Lord God, I beseech thee, and pray that thou long preserve to us, unharmed and victorious, our God-loving sons. Amen.”  
  
He rose to his feet.  
  
Laurie Collins, child of the devil, must die if the Lord’s children are to flourish. She looked like any other pretty girl, but Stryker wasn’t fooled. He knew that his conflict was not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities of the air.  
  
Laurie Collins would be dead by sundown. God’s will be done.

\-----------------  
  
The training session wasn’t going well.  
  
“This is a simple exercise,” Emma had said. “All you have to do is knock Colossus down.”  
  
Easier said than done. Particularly when Colossus was a 7’5” tall, well, colossus, made entirely out of some form of bizarre, flexible, organic steel, and who weighed about as much as Karen did. Add on top of that a stupid level of competence in hand to hand combat, and you’ve got a problem for even an entire team of trainees.  
  
“Clumsy,” Colossus said, evading Rockslide’s attack and slamming him into the floor hard enough to knock him senseless. Elixir rushed up behind him and struck him on the back of the head with part of a steel girder. Colossus barely noticed. “There are eight of you,” he said, picking up Elixir and casting him aside. “Work as one.”  
  
Surge made her attack next, and all it amounted to was Mercury and X-23 each getting a blast of her own lightning to the face as Colossus redirected her hands in mid discharge. He released Nori and stepped back.  
  
“You’re running out of team mates,” Colossus said.  
  
“WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?!”  
  
“You are the team’s leader, Surge. This is your burden. If you don’t find a way to win, your friends will die.”  
  
Karen charged. Colossus saw her coming, but wasn’t quite able to evade her blow. He took it to the chest, but while he didn’t have time to evade, he did have time to set himself. His feet lost traction on the floor, but he did not fall: he slid across the floor and impacted the far wall.  
  
Thinking she had an opening, Karen zoomed in after him, aiming to grab him by the leg and throw him while he was recovering from the impact.  
  
...but apparently, he hadn’t needed to recover. He was ready for her, and when she flew down to deliver her coup de grace, he seized her by the shoulders and pulled her down sharply even as he brought his knee up to meet her her abdomen directly on top of her thoracic diaphragm.  
  
It HURT, and it blasted the air out of her lungs. Down she went, struggling to breathe.  
  
A minute later, it was over.  
  
“This exercise is over,” Emma said. “And you are all dead.”  
  
Joy.  
  
And then Elixir pulled his stunt, hit Colossus with a steel girder after he’d shifted back to human form, and got kicked off the team.  
  
Karen sighed, picking absently at her uniform. Not long after, she began the long walk from the danger room back upstairs. She passed Celeste on the way, and though she smiled and said hello, the girl seemed to stiffen at the sight of her, and left without saying a word.  
  
She frowned, not entirely sure what that had been about. After a few moments worry that she might have done something to offend Celeste, she dismissed it from her mind, deciding, ‘I may be a girl now, but I still don’t understand women.’

\-----------------  
  
Dawn broke the following morning, filling the sky with light and glory, but in the room shared by Surge and the newly dubbed Power Girl, no sign of it could be seen. Their alarms went off at the same time. 7:30 AM. This time, Karen didn’t keep sleeping. This time, she clambered out of bed and staggered into the bathroom.  
  
“Xander,” Kara called, “Don’t forget to...”  
  
Karen grimaced. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”  
  
“Know what?” Nori asked, only just stirring in her bed, rubbing her eyes sleepily.  
  
Karen ignored her. After the gossiping Nori had done, she wasn’t prepared to forgive her just yet. Especially with some people STILL singing ‘that song.’ She’d asked for and had been given shaving supplies, and today, in the bath, she was going to give it a shot. ...she was trying not to think about it too much.  
  
She stepped in and settled down, lathered up her right leg, set the razor against her skin, and started to pull it upwards. There was a sound like tearing metal. A moment later, bits of razor-blade tumbled into the bathwater.  
  
Karen stared. “... Uh... Kara?”  
  
Kara sighed. “I was kind of hoping you hadn’t powered up enough for that to be a problem.”  
  
“Well, obviously, it’s a problem!”  
  
There came a knock on the door, followed by Nori’s voice. “Karen? You OK in there?”  
  
“I’M FINE!” she yelled back. “EVERYTHING’S FINE!”  
  
“OK,” Kara said, “There’s another way to do it, but you’re not going to like it.”  
  
“I’m not going to like it more than I’m not going to like shaving your legs in the first place? Because I gotta say, my dislike of that activity is already making want to start with the destructo-boy here!”  
  
“Girl,” Kara replied.  
  
“Whatever. Still waiting.”  
  
“Right. So it’s like this: you have to use your heat vision.”  
  
“WHAT?!”  
  
“Karen?”  
  
“What?!”  
  
There was a pause, and then Noriko asked, “... is there someone in there with you?”  
  
“NO!”  
  
Another pause. “I’m getting a teacher.”  
  
Karen grimaced. “Damnit. Fine! You want me to use my heat vision, I’ll use my heat vision!” And with that, she let loose with a huge blast of heat over her entire lower body, and while its area of effect did include her legs, it also included a more... sensitive area.  
  
Karen’s ensuing scream of pain nearly shook the building.  
  
\-----------------  
  
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the infirmary?” Noriko asked. They were walking down the hallway behind a mortified looking Kitty Pryde, who had come running at the sound of screams only to discover... the situation was what it was.  
  
Karen walked stiffly. Very stiffly. Very, very stiffly. Some areas had been hit harder than others. ...and she was walking with first degree burns. “I’m. Fine.” she said through gritted teeth. As it turned out, she was more than capable of hurting herself with her own powers if she wasn’t careful.  
  
“That has to be beyond painful. Come on, Karen. They’ll probably have an ointment or something...”  
  
Kitty was trying not to cringe at the thought.  
  
Karen glared. “... Stop. Talking. Please.”  
  
The physical damage, thankfully, was only temporary. The burns would heal - faster if she exposed herself to sunlight. The real damage was to her pride. Unfortunate shaving incidents aside, today was something special for the students at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. Today was field trip day.  
  
Before the arrival of the Sentinels and the establishment of the mutant refugee camp on the premises, they’d been allowed to come and go as they pleased. Since then, well, Karen didn’t know all the details, but she’d heard that the O*N*E people wanted to have them all tagged before any of them would be let out. Supposedly, the refugees actually had the tags implanted, but the X-Men were not willing to allow the same for their students. Each group would have an adult chaperone. No one would be allowed to go off on their own. The chaperone would be carrying a comm-link which the O*N*E people could track the location of, and would allow them to call for help if they needed it.  
  
Karen’s group consisted of herself, a blonde girl she hadn’t met yet named Laurie Collins, Josh - the guy who’d gotten himself kicked off the training squad, Sooraya, Noriko, and a black kid Karen hadn’t met named David Alleyne. They’d pulled Piotr Rasputin - Colossus - as their chaperone.  
  
By the time they’d been allowed onto the bus, Karen was feeling more uncomfortable than not. Perhaps being swathed from head to toe in form-concealing clothing that left nothing exposed to sunlight had something to do with it - Emma hadn’t been particularly happy when she’d learned that Karen had intentionally let herself be exposed to sunlight earlier that day, even if it was to heal painful blisters, and was taking no chances on the field trip. A thin, rust-coloured turtleneck sweater over a long sleeved shirt. Faded blue jeans. Boots. A toboggan hat that covered her ears. Emma had even made her wear long underwear under it all, though no observer would be able to tell. For the first time since she’d first been exposed to sunlight in this new world, Karen felt uncomfortably warm.  
  
So here she was, sitting in the back of a school bus across from the other girl prone to wearing ultra-concealing clothing - Sooraya, in her abaya, with a niqab covering her face. Completely different styles of dress. Comparable amounts of skin left showing.  
  
“Hey,” Karen said, sounding miserable.  
  
“... Hey,” Sooraya replied a bit uncertainly.  
  
The bus began to move, and Karen looked down as her ever more sensitive hearing picked up shouting from across the compound.  
  
“This is bullshit!” A man with an eye-patch yelled. “You tag us like fucking DOGS if we want to see the outside, and those damned brats at the Xavier school get to saunter on out on a field trip without a problem?!”  
  
“We won’t stand for this!” shouted a mutant who resembled nothing so much as a skeleton shrouded in flames.  
  
Karen looked up just in time to meet the gaze of an angry mutant who resembled nothing so much as a humanoid elephant, flipping the bird to the entire bus. “FUCK YOU, X-BRATS!” he shouted, and this time Karen was not the only one who heard: most of those on the bus turned to look. He was not alone. A dozen mutants had gathered, and were now being held back by a line of soldiers in battle armor carrying rifles.  
  
The bus rumbled on.

\-----------------  
  
“So,” Karen said. She and Sooraya were following the rest of the group through the local shopping mall. Neither was particularly comfortable with the situation, albeit for different reasons. People were staring. They knew that these were students from Xavier’s. A few made uncomplimentary comments under their breath.  
  
Karen heard them all.  
  
“So,” Sooraya said.  
  
“You come here much?”  
  
Sooraya shook her head.  
  
An uncomfortable silence ensued.  
  
“So,” Karen tried again, “Wearing a burqa, what’s the what?”  
  
Sooraya gave Karen an irritated look. “It is not a burqa. It is an abaya. I wear it with the niqab as a sign of my submission to Allah.”  
  
“... Ah,” Karen said.  
  
A second uncomfortable silence ensued.  
  
Karen gave up soon after, leaving Sooraya to bring up the tail of the group by herself. She had no idea how to relate to the other girl, and she’d never been religious herself. Not when she was Xander, certainly not now. Which wasn’t to say she was necessarily an atheist, just that... well, religion wasn’t a part of her life at all. Never had been. Even when he started helping Buffy, they’d used crosses and holy water, sure, but those were tools and weapons, not, well... She shook her head.  
  
The black kid spoke up, then. “You’re Karen, right? I don’t think we’ve met.”  
  
Karen looked his way. Tall. Glasses. Built like a linebacker. Smile on his face. “Hey, yeah, I guess we haven’t. You’re...” she trailed off. She drew a blank on his name. She’d been told it once before, but it just wasn’t coming to her.  
  
“David,” he said.  
  
“Hey,” Karen said, her voice growing cheerful, “Nice to meet you. Guess I’ll ask what everyone always asks: what’s your power?”  
  
David’s face fell, and yet another awkward silence descended, this time shared by the whole group as they stared at Karen and David for a moment.  
  
David forced a smile. “Guess you hadn’t heard. I lost my power on M-Day.”  
  
Karen felt a growing sense of embarrassment which quickly moved on into mortification. “For I am Karen, queen of the cretins. May all lesser cretins bow before me.” That, at least, drew a laugh from David, which made Karen feel better about reusing a joke. “OK, we’re young and we’re in a mall, I say we go dump huge amounts of disposable income into items of dubious utility!”  
  
“Sounds like a plan,” Laurie said with forced cheer. But it got them moving, and soon they were indulging in that grand ritual of the American experience which united young and old, from sea to shining sea: consumption. It wasn’t much, and maybe it wasn’t even healthy, but it took their minds off their troubles and let them laugh and pretend to be normal teenagers for a few hours, and maybe that was enough.  
  
Two hours later, Colossus informed them via their communicators that it was time to go. They were all to meet up at the food court, and from there they would proceed back to the bus to return to Xavier’s. It was now late afternoon, and the shadows outside were lengthening.  
  
Karen came walking back towards the food court with Laurie and Josh. Each of them had an orange smoothie in hand, and Josh and Laurie were laughing. “You can’t be serious,” Josh said.  
  
“Why would I lie? Inviso-girl locks us in the basement with the gas on, and then tries to take her revenge on Cordelia...” Karen paused, “You know, it’s funnier to talk about it than it was to live through it.”  
  
Laurie shook her head incredulously. “I thought MY old school was bad,” she murmured.  
  
“Weren’t you home schooled?” Josh asked.  
  
Laurie gave Josh an annoyed look. “For your information, I went to public school. Things sucked for me beyond the telling of it before my powers woke up.” A pause. “And they they still sucked, but in a different way.”  
  
Karen nodded. “Giles used to say that we were ‘dreadfully mistaken if we thought the only purpose of high school was to instill a capacity for suffering,’ but that’s still what my money’s on.”  
  
“Hey,” Josh said, “Looks like we're the first ones here.” He looked around, and took a sip of his smoothie. “Oh wait, there's Mr. Rasputin.” He waved to Colossus, who nodded back as he made his way towards the three students.  
  
“I trust you have enjoyed yourselves?” Colossus asked.  
  
“Hey, I'm always up for some mall prowling,” Karen said. A pause. “That sounded creepier than I meant it.”  
  
None of the three knew that at that moment, from the second story window of the building across the street from the mall and with a clear line of fire to the food court, Matthew Risman - one of Stryker’s Purifiers - had Laurie in his sights, his high powered sniper rifle ready to fire. His finger eased onto the trigger as he settled the cross-hairs onto her heart.  
  
He exhaled as he gently squeezed the trigger.  
  
The bullet flew true, its sound dampened by the suppressor mounted to the rifle’s barrel.  
  
Karen saw the muzzle flash, and immediately her Kryptonian brain went into overdrive, processing information at speeds an order of magnitude higher than it had been even an instant before. She saw the bullet. Saw its trajectory intersecting Laurie’s heart. Saw that nobody else could do a damn thing. Saw that even with her speed, while she might have time to get in the way, she wouldn’t have time to reach out, grab Laurie, and pull her out of the way without ripping the girl’s arm off in the process - an injury that would likely prove just as lethal as any bullet. Her heart began to race, her palms became slick with sweat.  
  
Moving with super-speed, she stepped in front of the path of the bullet.  
  
Time seemed to resume its normal flow. Karen’s chest erupted in a blaze of agony as a depleted uranium slug impacted against her collarbone.  
  
Blood spurted onto the floor.  
  
She was falling. Someone was screaming. She couldn’t tell if it was her.  
  
“MR. RASPUTIN!” someone screamed.  
  
Distantly, she heard a second shot, and then a third.  
  
The world faded, and all she knew was darkness, and a vast, terrible silence.  
  
 **End Chapter 06**


	7. Crusade, Part II

Pain.  
Darkness.  
Silence.  
  
 _"The blackest night... falls from the skies...”_  
 _“What a difference a day makes...”_  
 _“The darkness grows... as all light dies...”_  
  
Agony.  
Darkness.  
Loss.  
  
 _"Listen. What do you hear?"_  
 _"... Everything."_  
 _"Then you understand."_  
 _"Kal-L, I..."_  
  
A point of night.  
A black ring.  
A red cape.  
A white light.  
  
 _"... in brightest day... in blackest night..."_  
 _“Kara, I...”_  
 _"... no evil shall escape my sight..."_  
 _"Save it. You are NOT my father!"_  
  
A man in a blue mask with a bullet hole through his head.  
The Blue Beetle didn’t commit suicide. He was murdered.  
I remember everything.  
I remember...  
  
Kara Zor-L opened her eyes.

\------------------  
  
A New World in my View  
by P.H. Wise  
A Buffy Crossover Fanfic  
  
Chapter 07: Crusade, Part II  
  
Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. This chapter contains some dialogue from New X-Men #27. Marvel owns that, too.

\------------------  
  
“... Karen? Karen!”  
  
The world came rushing back with all the force of a freight train. Every perception bouncing through her head: she could see everything. Infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, radio waves, x-rays, gamma rays. She could hear... everything. … but why did it hurt so much?  
  
She remembered. Xander. He’d stepped in front of the gunshot.  
  
“Karen, how many fingers am I holding up?”  
  
She looked at the blonde girl and the fingers she was holding up. “... Six,” she murmured, and the sound of her own voice, and the feeling of it buzzing in her chest against her broken collarbone send fresh waves of agony surging through her body.  
  
“Why isn’t it working?”  
  
“Where’s Xander?” she asked confusedly.  
  
“Xander?” Josh asked. “Who’s Xander?”  
  
She was in the food court. Xander had brought them here. Had been talking with his friends. She’d been... the reality that she was in control of her own body after a month of total helplessness and almost a second month of being relegated to a phantom existence hit her suddenly, and the sheer intensity of it nearly overwhelmed her. “I’m back,” she whispered. “I’m back...”   
  
“Are you sure you healed her?”  
  
Josh shook his head. “I tried. I think... I’ve managed to stop the bleeding, but it’s weird. She’s...” he met Laurie’s gaze. “I don’t think she’s human.”  
  
She was in shock. Oh, Rao help her, she was in shock. “... she’s a star-woman,” she murmured, suppressing a giggle, even though every word was agony, “...waiting in the sky, she’d like to come and meet us, but she thinks she’d blow our minds...”  
  
“Don’t try to talk, idiot,” Laurie snapped. She looked up at Josh. “Human or not, she saved my life. But I think there’s something wrong with her. We need to get her to Miss Frost.”  
  
Josh shook his head. “Colossus told us to stay behind cover until he returned.”   
  
“JOSH! LAURIE!” Josh looked up. Surge and the others came rushing up.  
  
“What happened?!”  
  
Kara shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. The movement HURT, but she embraced that pain. Used it to force back her rising delirium. “... Josh...” she moaned.  
  
“They got Karen? Is she alive?!”  
  
The face of the sniper burned in her brain. The gun he carried. Every detail. She had to do something. Bombing a school bus full of children. Sending snipers to assassinate Laurie. A climate of fear. It couldn’t go on. Not when SHE could do something to stop it. So she lied.“Josh, I’m dying,” she said.  
  
His eyes bugged out. “No... no, Karen, I’ll... I’ll try harder. I can heal you. I stopped the bleeding!”  
  
“You can save me... but you have to... put me out in direct sunlight.”  
  
They knew that Miss Frost didn’t want Karen exposed to too much sunlight too quickly. But if she was right... All eyes went to Noriko. She was the leader. She made the call.  
  
“Do it,” Nori said.  
  
The sound of approaching Sentinels was loud to the others, almost deafening to Kara.  
  
She hissed in pain as Rockslide lifted her. Carried her to the sunlit portion of the room. Laid her body down almost reverently.  
  
Power began to flood into her cells. The bio-cellular matrix, her birthright as a Kryptonian, drawing in all the power that it could. She took off her hat, stripped out of her turtleneck. Every move was agony. Kara Zor-L rose to her feet, and then floated up into the air.  
  
“...Karen?” Noriko asked, eyes wide.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she told the others. “I have to stop this. This ends now.”  
  
“Karen, WAIT!”  
  
Kara rocketed into the afternoon sky. Up. Up. Higher. Higher. It grew difficult to breathe: she hadn’t yet absorbed enough to sustain her life functions in the absence of other sustenance. She blazed through the sky, accelerating as she went, the wind whipping through her hair, friction alone tearing the clothing from her body. Naked, she ascended, zooming out of the atmosphere, picking up speed as she went, absorbing more and more solar radiation as she went.  
  
She left the protective envelope of the Earth. Consciousness was fading. Her lungs burned, but held their rapidly diminishing supply of oxygen against the vacuum. She went on, exposed herself directly to the full force of the solar wind. Her pain vanished. The blackness at the edges of her vision receded. The Earth hung below her like a jewel suspended in the void, and for the first time since her arrival, Kara Zor-L felt whole. She was not at full power. Not yet. But this was enough for her purposes.  
  
She shot back down towards the Earth, the light of her reentry blazing a trail in the skies from San Francisco to New York city.

\------------------  
  
Early warning systems began to sound their alarms across the United States. Something was entering the atmosphere.  
  
At NORAD, a technician stared incredulously at the sensor readings he was getting. “Sir?”  
  
“What is it, Specialist?”  
  
“Inbound unidentified flying object, sir. Just hit atmo above California.”  
  
The captain frowned. “Show me.”  
  
The technician did.  
  
“Incoming at mach...” The captain’s eyes widened. “... That’s impossible.”  
  
S.H.I.E.L.D. went on high alert as the projected flight path of the unknown contact was traced: it was headed for New York. Resources were reallocated, but it would be at least an hour before a helicarrier could be on site.  
  
An alert went out to the New Avenger, and Earth’s mightiest heroes assembled at Stark Tower: Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, and Spider-Woman were on call. Theirs would be a response time of minutes and not hours.  
  
The X-Men, too, had their early warning system, installed long ago after repeated dealings with extra-terrestrial beings, and they leaped into action as they learned of the unknown object leaving a plume of plasma two miles long in its wake blazing across the United States. When it began to decelerate, their computers quickly calculated a likely destination: Westchester County.  
  
And high above the Earth, basking in the sunlight at the edge of the atmosphere, Divine looked upon the sign and knew it it for what it was.  
  
\------------------  
  
Emma was very, very calm as she asked, as calmly as she could, “What happened?”  
  
Valerie Cooper shook her head, “We’re still gathering data, Ms. Frost. Our initial report indicates that a sniper positioned in a third story apartment on the building across the street from the shopping mall a group of your students had chosen as their site of recreation opened fire, injuring, or possibly killing one of them in the process.”  
  
“We were assured of their safety, Ms. Cooper,” Emma said, very, very calmly. “Can you perhaps explain why the incompetence of your security measures has allowed the ‘injury or possible death’ of yet another student?”  
  
“... The shooter didn’t show up on any of our scanners...”  
  
“You expect us to put our lives into your hands,” Emma began, her calm unravelling slightly, “And when we do, you fail on every conceivable level, and you wonder why we are less than inclined to cooperate? You wonder why we see you as more of a hindrance than a help?”  
  
Val didn’t have a good reply for that, and she was spared further anger when a call came through to Emma’s office. Emma picked up her phone. “This had better be good,” she said.  
  
#Emma,# Scott said over the line, #Colossus just reported in. No casualties, but Karen is missing. Josh and Laurie claim she saved Laurie’s life, and then flew away. I...#  
  
The early warning alarms began to sound. They had an inbound contact from outside the atmosphere, and it was coming. Here.  
  
It was days like this made Emma glad she never gave up drinking.  
  
\------------------  
  
Protesters had been gathering outside of Xavier’s since the first confused days after M-Day. At first, it had only been a trickle of crazies. Two days back, that trickle had become a flood. All the nation seemed to have turned out to show their anger at the presence of this last bastion of mutant-kind upon the earth. Hundreds of thousands of fearful, angry human beings gathered in common purpose beneath the guidance of one Reverend William Stryker, and he was greatly pleased. But more importantly, the Lord was pleased. He had sent out the call, and his people had answered magnificently! The police had never seen anything like it, and it was all they could do to keep the throng of the faithful from storming the gates of that God-forsaken school.  
  
The tool the Lord had granted to him had proven a bounty beyond knowing.  
  
He had been a crusader, once. One of god’s chosen in the war against Satan and his demons, and their blasphemous children known as mutant-kind. But he had strayed. She had tempted him - it always seemed to be women who did the tempting - and he, like Adam, had fallen. Had been convinced that God was wrong. Had fallen from grace.  
  
The Lord had chastised him for his lack of faith, for his moment of weakness. Surely the agonies of Saint Peter in the moment when the cock crowed that third and final time could not have been more terrible. He, the man who had only ever wanted to serve his God and his country, had forsaken them both for the sweet lies of the whore of Babylon. Oh, but his revenge upon Kitty Pryde would come, and when it did, it would be swift and terrible. He would give her no chance to tempt him with her pretty lies this time. But all of that was in the past. He was a new man, now: forgiven. God had forgiven him, and had taken his sin as far away as the East was from the West. After a long and difficult road to redemption, the Lord had granted him a second chance, and a tool with which to strike down the devil-spawned abominations once and for all, and what a tool it was!  
  
Nimrod.  
  
A Sentinel from a glorious future where humanity had won its war against Satan’s spawn. Where every trace of the mutant filth had been tracked down and destroyed. It had taught him things. Terrible, wonderful things. For such was his calling as a man of God: what he bound on Earth, God would bind in heaven; what he loosed, God would loose.  
  
But it was time. The stage was set. His people were waiting. The cameras were waiting. “Oh Lord,” he prayed. “Be with your humble servant this night. Guide my steps, and grant me the strength to do your will. Amen.”  
  
\------------------  
  
“... Miss Frost, you have to listen!”  
  
Emma raised an eyebrow. The students had been returned more or less safely, and no sooner had Noriko returned to her room than she came rushing back to her office to speak with her.  
  
“There was a blur, and then Power Girl’s costume was gone. I think...” Noriko looked up. “I think she’s going to do something foolish.”  
  
The pieces began to fall into place. Karen had been injured. Emma couldn’t find her telepathically. … was it because she was searching for the wrong mind? Could it be Kara who was in control? “Then we’d better find her before she does,” she said.  
  
\------------------  
  
He walked out onto the stage. A great amphitheater had been provided for his use, and every seat had been filled. Cameras flashed. The roar of the crowd was deafening. He raised his hand towards the sky as if to redirect their praise to the one to whom it was truly due: he was but the servant; the glory belonged to the Lord. He knew that his words were being carried all around the world by the television cameras, but also to his Purifiers, and to the hundreds of thousands who protested outside of the Xavier mansion as well. “My children,” he began, “Let us pray the way our Lord taught us: Our Father,” and the whole crowd joined in, their voices mingling with his own until it seemed there was no distinction between them, “Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...” The prayer went on, every heart lifted in submission, every knee bent, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, and ever, and ever! Amen!” By the time the prayer concluded, the crowd had reached a fever pitch, none of them, him least of all, seeing the tiniest contradiction between that prayer and the hatred they poured so freely upon the least of these, my brethren.  
  
“My children, I speak to you tonight of the Anti-Christ: the man who will be empowered by Satan to lead the forces of darkness against the children of God. Have you not heard? He will lead the world into the terrors of the Apocalypse. Although he will be against the faithful Christians, and will mock God’s word, the world will view him as a man of peace. He will use deception and lies to spin his web of deceit and to conceal his true motives, promoting a vision of universal brotherhood between man and mutant, when his true goal is conquest, and to ride forth to conquer us all! Can anyone doubt that this man is Charles Xavier?”  
  
The crowd roared its approval. Power. He felt it in his veins. Every word carrying these people with him, driving them onwards to accomplish God’s calling.  
  
“The signs are beyond number! But God in his mercy has performed a great miracle! The devil-spawn have been driven from our presence like the pestilence that they are, and now their last remnant lingers in that,” his voice took on a mocking tone, “Institute for Higher Learning.” He paused for effect. “But the time has come! Today, we take back the paradise that was lost by our inaction! Today, by your actions, we strike a blow for the Lord!”  
  
The crowd roared its approval, and he basked in it. “AMEN!” he shouted, as if he were an observer and not the preacher. “By the power of the holy spirit, we shall be more than conquerors, my children! We shall be sons and daughters of the most high God!”  
  
And then a streak of white and blue and gold came out of the sky, landing with a thunderclap, and with such force that it shook the outdoor theater and left a crater six feet across in the concrete stage.  
  
Power Girl had arrived.  
  
\------------------  
  
Xander’s consciousness was stronger now. Not strong enough to push her out of the driver’s seat, but strong enough that Power Girl knew that her time was short. Tracking Matthew Rissman might have been looking for a needle in a haystack for the police, but for a Kryptonian with super-speed, x-ray vision, a starting point, a bird’s eye view, and a very good reason to follow him back to his boss, it had proven a matter of patience and determination. She’d found him eight minutes after the shooting. He’d switched vehicles at least once already, and he did so twice more before he finally returned to his safe house. He hadn’t been cooperative, but the journal that he kept hidden behind a secret panel - easily discoverable when you can see through walls - had been... illuminating. What she’d found there had led her here. She wasn’t here to do what her first impulse had been: she’d never really been a plan kind of girl. She was all about action and smashing things, but that wasn’t going to work here. It might even make things worse.  
  
But this was about more than just what had happened to Xander earlier today. This was about right and wrong. This was about... how could she call herself a hero if she wasn’t willing to confront William Stryker for what he had done? No plan. No equipment. No backup. She had a brief ‘What the hell am I doing?’ moment.  
  
‘ _KARA, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!_ ’ a voice all but screamed in her head.  
  
 _‘Oh. Hi Emma.’  
  
‘You had better not be... no. Absolutely not. Going after Stryker is idiotic. Assaulting him at a public event will only hurt our cause.’  
  
‘Who said anything about assaulting?’  
  
‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just turn off your brain and puppet you back to the school myself? What the hell do you think you’re doing?’  
  
‘The right thing.’  
  
‘No. I’m not going to let you do thi...’_ Something cut off Emma’s telepathic signal in mid-thought.  
  
She arrived.  
  
Screams filled the amphitheater. Terror. Rage. The crowd was shaken by her arrival. The Reverend Stryker held forth his hand and called out, “Be not afraid, my people! The Lord is with us! She is a servant of the Devil, come to test our faith! Stand strong in the hour of trial!”  
  
Power Girl tossed the broken remains of Matthew Risman’s sniper rifle onto the stage. “Stryker!” she yelled, modulating her power to amplify her voice as if she, too, were speaking through the sound system. “This insanity ends now!”  
  
Silence, and then the crowd began to rumble like a hundred thousand angry bees. Not a single security guard made a move towards her - they weren’t being paid enough to confront a superhuman. William Stryker’s voice pierced the din, and as he spoke, his people fell silent. “It is no insanity to follow the will of God!” he proclaimed. “You come against us with your demon fueled powers, but we come against you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!”  
  
Power Girl walked forward, and the news cameras followed her as she went. “Your assassin has failed, Stryker. Your attempt to murder a teenage girl has failed.”  
  
“We will not hear your slander here, mutant,” Stryker replied. “But I guess you already knew that. Why have you come?”  
  
“To give you a chance,” Power Girl replied. “To stop this. To give up this hate that has poisoned you: this hate that you spread to everyone you touch.” She looked out at the crowd, “I’ve seen what human beings can do. The good and the bad. Your aggression, your blind submission to leaders, your hostility to outsiders, your compassion for others, love for your children, your great, soaring, passionate intelligence. You can be a great people; I know that you wish to be. Turn away from this madness.”  
  
“Or what?”  
  
“Or I’ll stop you.”  
  
Stryker seemed momentarily taken aback, but he recovered quickly. He laughed. “Just like that, you’ll stop me? You think you can stand against the will of God, girl? Who do you think you are?”  
  
She continued her slow walk towards him. “I’m Power Girl. I’m the last daughter of Krypton. I’ve seen the death of worlds, survived the death of universes. I stood against the Blackest Night, I’ve faced monsters, gods, and demons, and I am not afraid of you, William Stryker.”  
  
His pride was pricked. Fury built within him. How DARE this little girl challenge him here, in front of his own! He slipped on the gauntlet that he kept behind his podium. “My children,” he cried, “It’s time to win the war between Heaven and Hell!” He raised up the gauntlet of Nimrod.  
  
“Stop this, Stryker. This is your last chance.”  
  
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he replied. “I answer to a higher power.” There was a deep, bass rumble, and a pulse of blinding light, and then...  
  
Pandemonium. That suited Kara just fine.  
  
“Purifiers!” Stryker called, “The time is now!” And then he leveled the gauntlet at Power Girl and let loose with a terrific blast of electromagnetically sheathed plasma. She didn’t try to dodge: she knew that if she were to do so, hundreds of normal humans behind her would die. She clenched her eyes shut and covered them with her hands. The plasma blast detonated on impact, obscuring her body in fire.  
  
When the flames died down, her exposed flesh looked like she had stayed out in the sun for far too long, but she was otherwise fine.  
  
And pissed.  
  
People were screaming, running in all directions, praying for their god to save them.  
  
“You had to have known. If I had dodged, how many people would you have killed just now, Reverend?”  
  
“MY FLOCK IS PREPARED TO LAY DOWN THEIR LIVES IN SERVICE TO THE LORD!” ‘Analysis complete,’ a mechanical voice chimed from Stryker’s gauntlet. ‘Necessary adaptations made. Prepare to fire.’ He raised his gauntleted arm once more, preparing something worse. Something lethal. That deep, awful rumble nearly split the air as power gathered in his gauntlet.  
  
"I wouldn't be so sure," she replied. Then, her voice still amplified to reach every person in the amphitheater, she called out, "Ladies and gentlemen, I recommend you walk calmly to the nearest exit."  
  
The rumble grew louder. The power buildup reached its peak. He drew back his hand, clutching a ball of pure destruction between his gauntleted fingers.  
  
She took his arm off at the shoulder with a blast of her heat vision. The wound was instantly cauterized, and arm and gauntlet both hit the concrete stage with a thunk. The ball of death flickered and went out.  
  
Stryker stared at the blackened stump that seconds ago had been a functioning part of his body, and then directed every ounce of his hatred at Power Girl. “... You... you cannot defeat me so easily!” he spat, “I have the holy spirit power, girl! I will purge this world of your filth!”  
  
Power Girl smiled a bit viciously. “Yeah? You and what arm-y?” And then she blanched, horrified by what she’d just said. “... Oh God. I need to spend less time with Xander.” And nobody but her understood why that last bit was funny. Damn.  
  
Stryker laughed. He couldn’t help it. He laughed. “What arm-y? What army? This one! Purifiers!”  
  
Dozens of robed men rose up from their hiding places, each of them carrying weaponry tailor made to kill super-humans.   
  
They opened fire.  
  
\------------------  
  
“Something isn’t right,” the purifier said.  
  
“I know. Paul and Joseph should have returned by now,” his fellow replied.  
  
They stood guard in a hidden chamber inside of Reverend Stryker’s church. A damaged, angular, pink robot hung from a cross in the center of the room, surrounded on all sides by banks of computers.  
  
The first shook his head. “No, I’m talking about the device. After that last power spike, everything changed... the levels are off the charts.”  
  
On the ground, a young mutant by the name of Joshua Guthrie was bleeding to death. “... I’m sorry,” he moaned, “So... sorry...”  
  
The first purifier grimaced. “What’s taking them so long? They’re supposed to come and pick up this one, too.”  
  
The second grew angry. “Will you shut up about the mutant?! Something is very wrong here.”  
  
The robot lifted its head.  
  
“I... oh, no.”  
  
That was all he had time to say before the discharge of a beam of pink energy from the robot’s outstretched hand blasted him into a cloud of superheated but swiftly cooling carbon dust.  
  
“ **NIMROD UNIT ONLINE, CONTACT ESTABLISHED. WEAPONS SYSTEMS AT 7.24 PERCENT.** ” It clamped its hand down on the other purifier’s skull and lifted him into the air, his screams muffled by the palm its robotic hand. “ **HUMAN COMBATANT IDENTIFIED: DESIGNATION 'PURIFIERS.' ANALYSIS: THREAT TO PRIMARY OBJECTIVE. TERMINATE.** ”  
  
A second discharge. A second life extinguished in the blink of an eye.  
  
The boy on the ground stared in terror. “... please... Julia... forgive me... I didn’t want to...”  
  
“ **UNIT ENERGY AT 16.5 PERCENT. MUTANT TARGET CONFIRMED: JOSHUA GUTHRIE, DESIGNATION: ICARUS. RECOMMENDATION: TERMINATE. ERROR. SYSTEMS AT CRITICAL ENERGY LEVELS. DISCHARGE OF PRIMARY WEAPONS JEOPARDIZES PRIMARY OBJECTIVE. SOLUTION. MASSIVE INTERNAL BLEEDING IN PROGRESS. SOLUTION. TARGET DEATH IMMINENT.** ” The pink Sentinel clenched its fist. “ **PROCEED WITH RECOVERY OF MISSING PARTS. INITIATE REPAIR PROTOCOLS. MISSING PARTS LOCATED. INITIATING TELEPORTATION EVENT.** ”  
  
Nimrod vanished in a flare of violent pink energy.  
  
\------------------  
  
Bullets designed to penetrate telekinetic shields bounced off of Power Girl’s skin, some ricocheting wildly, most simply falling to the ground with their momentum cancelled. It stung a little bit, and she would probably have all manner of unsightly red marks from this, but she was otherwise unharmed. “Is that the best you can do?" she asked.  
  
A thrown vibranium knife scored a long gash along her forearm, and it was little comfort to know that had she been human, it likely would have cut her arm off. Power Girl looked at it the gash for a moment, looked to the Purifier who had thrown it the knife, looked back at the gash. “... Shit.”  
  
A dozen more purifiers began to brandish their knives, Stryker, clutching his charred shoulder, began to laugh.  
  
Overhead, a VTOL jet aircraft zoomed over the amphitheater at extreme low altitude. As it circled back around, and the sound of its engines became all but deafening. Simultaneously, a large pink robot appeared in a flash of pink.  
  
There, surrounded by enemies wielding weapons that could actually hurt her, with unknown threats approaching, Power Girl took a moment to stare incredulously. “... OK, now you’re just making fun of me,” she muttered.  
  
“ **ALERT: MISSING PIECES DETECTED. ALERT: ENEMY COMBATANTS DETECTED. ANALYZING. OMEGA CLASS THREAT DETECTED. INITIATING REPAIR SEQUENCE.** ”  
  
Pink light flared around the robot, and the gauntlet Stryker had once worn rattled dangerously on the stage. Then, all at once, the robotic arm shot up towards the Sentinel, still carrying its cargo of severed limb, and reattached to its body. Immediately, repairs seemed to flow across the robot’s body. “ **SYSTEM REPAIR COMPLETED. UNIT AT 75% OF FULL CAPACITY. ALERT: SILENT SYSTEM ALERT PROTOCOLS DISABLED. ALERT: TELEPATHIC SUPPRESSION FIELD DETECTED. ALERT: SUPERHUMAN CONTACT DETECTED. ALERT: AVENGERS INCOMING. NEW X-MEN INCOMING. UNKNOWN CONTACT INCOMING. ACCESSING DATA STREAM. CHRONAL ERROR DETECTED: DATA STREAM IN FLUX.** ” Its sensors honed in on Power Girl, taking in every data point it could get, comparing her against what it already had in its data-banks. “ **ERROR: SUPERHUMAN NOT FOUND IN HISTORICAL DATA. ANOMALOUS PRESENCE DETECTED. TIMELINE CORRUPTION DETECTED.** ” It turned to face her then, seemingly heedless of the barrage of thrown vibranium daggers she was in the middle of dodging. “ **ANOMALOUS PRESENCE WILL STATE ITS DESIGNATION.** ”  
  
A blast of lightning came from back stage. It washed over the Nimrod without effect.  
  
“Power Girl!” Surge - Noriko - shouted as she and the rest of the team rushed onto the stage.  
  
Power Girl’s eyes widened. “... Surge?”  
  
“ **DESIGNATION ‘POWER GIRL’ ACCEPTED. INITIATING HOSTILE ACTION**.”  
  
The amphitheater was nearly empty now. Just a few stragglers remained of the crowd that had been here when the conflict began: mostly lone individuals recording the event on their phones and digital cameras, heedless of the very real danger around them. The real reporters had fled with the crowd, and the television cameras stood unmanned but still recording.  
  
“Why are you here?!” Power Girl asked, leaping out of the way of a plasma blast Nimrod sent her way - it detonated against the first line of seats, sending leftover belongings flying in every direction, leaving behind a scorched crater. "Emma would never let you..."  
  
“You have to ask?” Hellion asked, cutting her off.  
  
“We’re a team,” Rockslide said.  
  
“And we don’t abandon our own!” Surge finished.  
  
“How touching,” came a voice from above. Power Girl spared a glance upwards, and her heart nearly lurched in her chest. “But ultimately futile.”  
  
Divine.  
  
Divine was HERE.  
  
“I don’t know what you did to take me away from Max,” she said, “But you’re going to pay. RIGHT NOW.”  
  
Battle was joined, and no graceful ballet this, but the superheroic equivalent of a bar room brawl: New X-Men plus Power Girl vs Nimrod vs Divine vs Purifiers. Nimrod let loose with a volley of pink energy blasts, and the team scattered to avoid them: the stage was not so lucky. Explosion after explosion rocked it, and shards of torn and shredded concrete and pieces of rebar flew in every direction. The sound of gunfire became omnipresent.  
  
Divine opened with a blast of heat-vision that carved a bubbling furrow in the Earth twelve feet long, Power Girl appearing to take the brunt of it, before she dove down to engage Power Girl in hand to hand combat. Power Girl was waiting. She had avoided the worst of the beam and pretended to be more grievously injured than she was: she pulled the same trick on Divine that Colossus had pulled on Xander not long previous, suddenly, unexpectedly grabbing her by the arms and yanking her savagely down to meet her knee, blasting the air from Divine’s lungs. Then she hefted her clone over her head and threw her into Nimrod, and the impact blasted them both backwards and off the back of the stage.  
  
They came up a moment later, fighting each other with a level of ferocity that neither Kara nor the New X-Men had ever seen, Nimrod attempting to adapt to the Kryptonian’s sheer level of strength while she tore huge gaping holes in his structure with every blow, culminating in her heat vision meeting his full strength energy blast, and the ensuing detonation sending them both rocketing backwards.  
  
A little girl lay trampled and bleeding, and in the path of a stray plasma blast. Power Girl’s eyes widened, but she didn’t hesitate: she flew with desperate speed, took the plasma blast to the back, was flung forward over the little girl, tumbled head first into the wall at the back of the lower section of the stands. She was up a moment later and flying the little girl to safety before darting back into the fray. “We have to get out of here!” she yelled.  
  
Surge nodded. “X-Men,” she called through her communicator, motioning for her term to form up on her. “Let’s do this! Dust, clear us a path! Hellion, shield us as we move! Power Girl, cover us from above! Mercury, left flank, X-23, cover the right. Rockslide, you take the middle! Let’s move, X-Men!” And they did. Moving as a cohesive fighting force, with Power Girl covering them from incoming attacks, the New X-Men cut a path through the line of Purifiers, broke and scattered them.  
  
“OK,” came a sudden voice from above, “I like to think that I’m a pretty understanding guy, but this seems downright excessive.” A moment later, Spider-Man’s spider sense began to tingle, and he leaped to avoid a blast of bright pink energy from the Sentinel, then shot a strand of web to swing down and bowl over a pair of gunmen who had their sights fixed on his team.  
  
The New X-Men looked up.  
  
Iron Man. Spider-Man. Captain America. Miss Marvel.  
  
The Avengers had arrived.  
  
A flash of movement. She had barely enough time to get out of the way before Divine landed feet first in the column of concrete directly behind where her head had been. She emerged just in time to take a blast from Iron Man’s repulsors at full strength. A moment later, a familiar looking woman in a black uniform flew down and hit Power Girl as hard as she could, and it was her turn to be knocked flying.  
  
“OW! Damnit, not me! Not the bad guy here!”  
  
Nimrod ascended, then, and Iron Man turned in midair to face him, firing off blast after blast from his repulsor rays, each one knocking the advanced Sentinel backwards.  
  
“ **ALERT: SUPERHUMAN RESISTANCE BEYOND CURRENT CAPACITY. INITIATING TELEPORTATION EVENT.** ”  
  
Nimrod vanished in a burst of pink light.  
  
“Screw this,” Divine muttered. “We’ll finish this another time, Power Girl.” And then she too was gone, leaving a massive sonic boom in her wake.  
  
“All right,” Captain America said. “Every single one of you is under arrest. Put your hands on your heads. RIGHT NOW.”  
  
After a series of exchanged glances, the New X-Men and the two Purifiers who were still standing did just that.  
  
Kara grimaced. Xander was waking up. She could feel him stirring around the edges of her brain. He wasn’t going to be happy.  
  
“Shut those cameras off,” Iron Man said.  
  
And on what was left of the stage, lying on his back, his flesh scorched and torn, missing an arm and bleeding from where he had bashed his head when the stage had collapsed, William Stryker laughed like the madman that he was.  
  
 **End Chapter 07**


	8. Aftermath

A New World in my View  
by P.H. Wise  
A Buffy Crossover Fanfic  
  
Chapter 08: Aftermath  
  
Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. This chapter contains some dialogue from New X-Men #27. Marvel owns that, too.

\----------------  
  
To be honest, Karen hadn’t actually expected to wake up: she’d kind of figured that stepping in front of a high powered sniper round would put her down for good, super powers or not. She certainly hadn’t imagined that she’d be waking up more or less unharmed wearing her uniform plus a strange pair of goggles, and secured to a table with some sort of metal manacles. She felt... strong, actually. Very strong. Everything about her field of perception was different. She could see light everywhere. In everything. She could hear everything. The intensity of the sensation quickly grew overwhelming.  
  
A single tear made its way down her cheek.  
  
She lay like that for what felt like hours. She could feel the earth spinning beneath her at a thousand miles per hour, could feel it hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour. Sensation built upon sensation. Karen cried out, and squeezed her eyes shut.  
  
She didn’t know how long it was before she opened them again, but when she did, the flow of sensation was... better. More manageable. Still beyond belief, but not actively driving her mad.  
  
She tested the manacles. When they didn’t immediately give, she raised an eyebrow.  
  
“Don’t bother,” came a man’s voice from out of her field of view. “Those are Shi’ar gravity restraints. They’re rated for beings on par with Gladiator, so unless you can lift an entire planet...”  
  
She tilted her head as best she could.  
  
A … man? Stood leaning against the wall. A figure in red and gold armor.  
  
“And I guess the goggles are a clouded diamond matrix?” she asked weakly, thinking of the device that Ultra-Humanite had once used in the Power Girl comic book in an effort to keep Power Girl captive long enough to perform a ‘Grand Theft Me’ style body swap. It hadn’t worked, but still. Same device, different origin. She shivered.  
  
“Interesting. You’ve been a prisoner of the Shi’ar before?”  
  
She shook her head. “Lucky guess.”  
  
The robot, or man, or whatever it was, gave every impression of having snorted. “... Do you know why you’re here?” he asked.  
  
Karen searched her memories. Nothing. No hint of anything that might have happened between stepping in front of that bullet and now. She felt a sense of panic rising in her, but she squashed it down, forced herself to think. If she hadn’t been moving her body, obviously someone had. … Kara? Had it been Kara? She waited for Kara to say something. To give some hint of what had happened..   
  
Nothing.  
  
Her efforts not to panic became significantly less successful. “... Look, whoever you are, I’m sure I haven’t done anything wrong, and...” she trailed off under the armored figure’s expressionless gaze. Her first instinct was to ask after Laurie, and the question was nearly out of her mouth before she bit it back: if she was a prisoner, the last thing she wanted to do was give her captives information that could be used against her, or her friends. “Am I being accused of something?” she asked.  
  
“You and your friends caused several million dollars in property damage to the city of North Salem. More than that, six hundred people in attendance at William Stryker’s speaking engagement were injured. Two were killed. One of those killed was a young pregnant mother. And the whole thing happened on TV.”  
  
Karen felt her hackles rise.  
  
“Right now,” the armored figure went on, “The major networks are just breaking the news to the American people. And it’s going to play over and over and over, all over the world.”  
  
“Right,” Karen said angrily. She still didn’t remember a damn thing about what had happened, but massive property damage? Injuries? Deaths? Assuming Kara had been in control of the body when everything went down, did that sound like something she’d do? Or like something the New X-Men would do? So. For some reason they’d gone to William Stryker’s speaking event. … She’d heard of the man. What she’d heard had not impressed her. “Right,” Karen said, her anger and her tongue getting ahead of her brain, and getting the likely series of events more or less correct mostly by accident, “Because smarmy televangelist William Joseph Simmons and his super-friends tried to do a William Boroughs, and it’s not their fault, it’s ours.”  
  
The armored figure seemed taken aback, and actually had to take a moment to parse that out before replying with, “There’s such a thing as shouting ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater.”  
  
“There’s also such a thing as there being an actual fire in a crowded theater, and a group of mutants showing up to put it out only to find the ushers are packing flamethrowers, and...” She trailed off. Damn. That one had gotten away from her. “Can I start that over?”  
  
Karen had the distinct impression that the armored figure was glaring at her.  
  
And then Kara was there. Next to her. Standing across from the armored figure. Looking mortified. “Xander. Mouth. Talking. Make with the stoppage.”  
  
Karen was halfway tempted to mouth off at Kara, too, but she somehow she suspected that having tall red and shiny here thinking she was crazy probably wasn’t going to help her case. She shut her mouth. ‘Nice of her to finally show up,’ she thought, still more than a little bit angry.  
  
The armored figure strode angrily out of the room. The door slid shut with a hiss.  
  
“Hey,” Kara said, “Trying to keep your friends alive, rescue people, and fight off Stryker’s goons, Divine, and a big glowing pink robot thing at the same with your unconscious self trying to kick me out of the driver’s seat for half the fight takes a lot out of a girl.”  
  
Karen blinked. ‘Divine? wait... did you just respond to me thinking at you?’  
  
“Skanky black haired clone-me. It’s a long story. And, uh, yeah? What, did you think I was talking out loud all this time?”  
  
Karen felt like a fool. A totally furious fool, but a fool. ‘And you were going to clue me in on this when?’  
  
“... er...”  
  
Karen felt like screaming. She struggled in her bonds a bit. They didn’t budge. ‘I wish my hands were free so I could hit you,’ she thought.  
  
“You’d be hitting yourself, too.”  
  
‘Worth it. … Gah, you know that thing you do where you’re not there? Can you do that again?’  
  
Kara shook her head grimly. “No chance. You need to know what happened before you get us into even more trouble than you already have.”  
  
‘Than YOU already have.’  
  
“Just shut up and listen already.”  
  
She did. She thought about ignoring Kara just for spite, but self-preservation won out: she needed to know what had happened. She grit her teeth, and she listened.  
  
\---------------  
  
“What do you think?”  
  
The armored figure - Iron Man - shrugged almost imperceptibly. “About the girl, or about the mutants?”  
  
“Mutants,” Captain America said.  
  
“Their stories are consistent,” Iron Man said, his tone noncommittal. “If the damage hadn’t been so widespread, and forum so high profile, I’d be inclined to let them go. But as is, it’s going to be difficult to justify not handing them over to the police.”  
  
On a large video screen set into the wall before the two heroes, the video recordings of the incident were playing. There had been four news crews present. Of those, two had managed to get recordings of the entire event, with the other two cutting out during the fighting.  
  
 _“Why have you come?” Stryker’s voice asked.  
  
“To give you a chance,” Power Girl replied. “To stop this. To give up this hate that has poisoned you: this hate that you spread to everyone you touch.” She looked out at the crowd, “I’ve seen what human beings can do. The good and the bad. Your aggression, your blind submission to leaders, your hostility to outsiders, your compassion for others, love for your children, your great, soaring, passionate intelligence. You can be a great people; I know that you wish to be. Turn away from this madness.”  
  
“Or what?”  
  
“Or I’ll stop you.”_  
  
“And the girl?” Captain America asked.  
  
“Angry. Sarcastic. She’s got a problem with authority.” Beneath his mask, he grinned humorlessly. “You’d almost think she was a teenager.”  
  
“It’s strange, isn’t it?”  
  
Iron Man looked to Captain America, waiting for him to continue.  
  
“The young woman in the video doesn’t strike me as a teenage girl. Physically, sure, but...” He gestured to Power Girl’s image on the screen. There was a young woman who had power. Who knew it. Who knew how to use it responsibly. There was an undeniable authority in her voice and in her bearing. An authority that was missing in the girl restrained in the other room. “She reminds me of...”  
  
“You too?”  
  
Captain America nodded. “Think they’re related?”  
  
“Maybe. She did claim to be a ‘daughter of Krypton.’”  
  
“And your scans?”  
  
“They confirm that much,” Iron Man said. “She’s definitely a Kryptonian. Which means the other one likely is as well. The only question is, are they survivors of a version of Krypton in our world, or are they from the other universe?”  
  
“Not the **only** question,” Captain America said.  
  
Iron Man conceded the point. An alert popped up on his HUD. “The Blackbird is inbound. Looks like Logan is on his way, and he’s not alone.” He grimaced. “This is going to be unpleasant.”  
  
\---------------  
  
“Calm down, Logan. Going into this half-cocked is only going to make things worse.”  
  
“I am calm,” Logan said angrily as he stalked ahead of the rest of the group. “Real calm.” They’d only just landed in the hanger at Stark Tower. Only just emerged from the Blackbird. Behind him, Emma Frost looked icy and stony-faced, Scott Summers and Kitty Pryde looked worried, Colossus looked grim, and Beast’s expression was carefully neutral. “And if Tony don’t return our kids, I’m gonna calmly shove my claws right up his...”  
  
“Logan!”  
  
Logan didn’t apologize. Didn’t look apologetic. Didn’t feel apologetic. Scott took that to mean he apologized.  
  
\---------------  
  
Ben Grimm’s face appeared on the screen. “Hey, is this thing on?”  
  
Tony Stark blinked in surprise behind his mask. The X-Men had landed. They were on their way up from the hanger. He’d been about to go to meet them, when a call came in from the Fantastic Four. Reed he might have expected, but Ben? “I’m in the middle of something, Ben,” he said.  
  
“Yeah, I know. Ya got Karen locked up in that tower o’ yours.”  
  
“... You’re calling about that?”  
  
“Actually, I’m calling to say that we’re on our way over, and that you better be treatin’ Karen like a lady, otherwise I might just have to do some Clobberin’ when I get there.”  
  
The door opened with a hiss. His sensors registered the presence of the new arrivals, but he himself did not notice.  
  
Johnny Storm’s voice came over the line from somewhere off screen, “Hey, can we tell him we’re on our way without threatening violence to a leader of the Avengers?”  
  
Ben snorted, and turned to glare at someone off screen - Johnny, probably. “Shut yer trap. I said I’d make the call to the Avengers, I’m makin’ the call to the Avengers.” He looked back at the screen. “We’ll be landing in ten, Iron Man.”  
  
“We catch ya at a bad time, Tony?” came a very angry, very familiar voice from the door.  
  
He turned, cutting the connection to the Fantastic Four as he did so.  
  
The X-Men were here.  
  
\---------------  
  
“... rioting continues in the town of North Salem, New York in the wake of the mutant assassination attempt on evangelist William Stryker. Here at Fox News, we’ve received exclusive footage of that confrontation.”  
  
Footage began to play.  
  
 _“You come against us with your demon fueled powers, but we come against you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!”  
  
“Why have you come?”  
  
“To stop you.”  
  
Stryker seemed momentarily taken aback, but he recovered quickly. He laughed. “Just like that, you’ll stop me? You think you can stand against the will of God, girl? Who do you think you are?”  
  
She continued her slow walk towards him. “I’m the last daughter of Krypton. I’ve seen the death of worlds, survived the death of universes. I stood against the Blackest Night, I’ve faced monsters, gods, and demons. I’m Power Girl, and I am not afraid of you, William Stryker.”  
  
Stryker produced a pink gauntlet from behind the podium and raised it over his head. “I have the holy spirit power, girl. I intend to win the war between heaven and hell.”  
  
She fired lasers from her eyes. She cut off his arm at the shoulder. And then she smiled at the fallen preacher. “You and what arm-y?”_  
  
The camera returned to the anchor. “As shocking as this footage is, it did not end there. Soon, this ‘Power Girl’s’ mutant allies arrived, and the ensuing battle resulted in hundreds of injuries. Here to discuss the implications of this attack and what it means for our safety is political consultant and Fox News contributor, ‘Dick Morris.’ Dick?”  
  
“Hello, Jason. Good to be here.”  
  
“Good to have you. So, what does this incident mean for the mutant problem?”  
  
“Oh, I think it serves to underline the very real problem that we’ve allowed to brew in our society for years now. Mutants are out of control. They’ve been out of control for a long time, and I think the American people are finally waking up to that fact.”  
  
“Michael Barone has a column in the Washington Examiner which explains the long history of mutation and mutant terrorism in America, and how the majority in both Democratic and Republican parties are now behind the 8-ball in their reelection campaigns because of a perceived lack of toughness on the mutant problem. How much of a factor is that really likely to be in the coming elections?”  
  
Dick smiled grimly. “If anything, Mr. Barone is understanding the issue. The real question isn’t ‘how are these politicians going to wiggle into a more comfortable position?’ The real question is, ‘how can any politician who supports the mutant agenda hope to survive the coming election?’ and ‘When will the war on terror begin to address the problem of mutant terrorism?’ Even mutant groups like the so called ‘X-Men,’ who have long claimed to be the moderates in this debate, have engaged in brutal attacks against Americans, with this attack on Reverend Stryker’s peaceful prayer gathering being only the latest in a long list of atrocities they have carried out.”  
  
“Do you have any reaction to what appears to be evidence of the Xavier institute training children as anti-human terrorists? And an alliance with what is either a very disturbed young mutant, or an extra-terrestrial illegal alien?”  
  
“Only that it confirms what we’ve suspected for a long time. The alien angle is new, but we can hardly be surprised now by the depths of the depravity to which these creatures are willing to sink. These children should be receiving treatment for their mutation, not trained to use it to kill their fellow Americans in support of some radical mutant-superiority agenda.”  
  
“Dick Morris, thank you very much for your time. Joining me now is Doctor Jensen from the Genetech corporation. Doctor, your company once offered a cure for mutation, only to have that cure and its related research destroyed in an act of mutant terrorism, is that correct?”  
  
\---------------  
  
“Cut the bullshit, Tony,” Scott said. He’d gone with glasses and street clothes rather than spandex and visor today. They were all in street clothes, actually, save Emma, who wore a variant on her standard revealing white outfit. “We all know the outcome if this actually goes to trial: it will be a circus. The media will go into a feeding frenzy, the kids will end up in jail for the rest of their natural lives, and the mutant community will be even further alienated from the rest of humanity.”  
  
“That’s less of a concern than it used to be,” Iron Man replied. “There’s what, two hundred of you now?”  
  
“Actually, no,” Beast said. “Nine in ten mutants were depowered on M-Day. But that still leaves us with a world wide population numbering in the tens of thousands at the low end, hundreds of thousands at the high end.” The others were looking at him now, and he grew uncomfortable. “... Ah. But that is neither here nor there.”  
  
Scott shook his head. “You can’t seriously want to put our students in jail for confronting a man who was in the process of starting a race riot. Who had actually started that riot before most of them even got involved!”  
  
“That’s for the courts to decide,” Iron Man said.  
  
“I’m not going to argue with you. We’re taking our students.”  
  
Logan nodded in agreement. “Like it or not, bub, they’re comin’ with us.”  
  
Colossus didn’t transform, but he did crack his knuckles, and made it quite clear with his body language that he intended to back up his team.  
  
“Just try it,” Iron Man said.  
  
Emma looked bored. “Much as I enjoy the sight of male posturing,” she said, her tone scornful, “I would prefer we all sat down and discussed this like civilized people.”  
  
The others looked to her, then to Scott. When Scott relaxed, so did they. Iron Man stood down soon after.  
  
“Not before we see the students,” Scott said.  
  
“Of course, dear.”  
  
\---------------  
  
“And we’re back with continuing coverage of the rioting in North Salem,” Anderson Cooper said, facing the camera, the CNN logo behind him, news ticker crawling across the bottom of the screen. “As many of you will already have heard, the riot began at 4:30 PM eastern standard time when evangelist William Stryker told a crowd of thousands, quote, ‘The time has come. Today, we take back the paradise that was lost by our inaction. Today, by your actions, we strike a blow for the Lord. By the power of the holy spirit, we shall be more than conquerors, my children. We shall be sons and daughters of the most high God.’ unquote. But that’s not where the story ends. A moment later, the rally was disrupted by the arrival of what was apparently an angry superhuman teenager, claiming she had come to give Reverend Stryker, quote ‘A chance to stop this.’ unquote. Thanks to the associated press, CNN has gained access to the local news footage of the event, which we’re going to play for you now. We must advise you that some of the footage is graphic, and that if you have small children, you may wish to have them leave the room now.”  
  
The footage began - and mostly unedited footage this time - playing from the beginning to the arrival of the New X-Men and the beginning of the battle. When it concluded, the camera cut back to Anderson Cooper, his expression grim.  
  
“Here to discuss both sides of the issue, we have Patricia Tilby, journalist, reporter for WNBC, and long time supporter of peaceful human-mutant coexistence, and Desmond Creed, son of the late Graydon Creed and current head of the human advocacy group, ‘Friends of Humanity.’ Trish, Desmond, thank you for appearing on the show.”  
  
“Pleasure to be here, Anderson,” Patricia said, echoed a moment later by Desmond’s, “Thank you for having me.”  
  
\---------------  
  
“Heya Cap,” Ben called as he hopped down from his seat in the Fantastic Four’s inexplicably open topped, compartmented private transport.  
  
Captain America nodded. “Captain Grimm,” he replied.  
  
Johnny laughed at that, hopping down from the plane himself.  
  
“C’mon, Cap, yer making me blush.”  
  
Sue and Reed disembarked next, and Captain America smiled. “Sorry, Ben.” He looked to the others. “Tony’s upstairs with the X-Men, but I thought I should come down here to meet you in person. You’ve seen the news, I take it?”  
  
“Some of it,” Reed replied. “I don’t think they’ve decided what narrative they’re going to advance yet.”  
  
“Well, things are serious. Anti-mutant sentiment has been on the rise for some time now, and Maria thinks that if S.H.I.E.L.D. makes an example now, it will do a lot to calm things down.”  
  
Reed nodded at that. They whole group began to head up towards the upper levels where Tony and the X-Men waited.  
  
“Right. But what do **you** think?” Ben asked.  
  
\---------------  
  
“... come now, our reputation is entirely undeserved, I assure you,” Desmond Creed said, looking straight into the camera, his face the very picture of sincerity. “The Friends of Humanity are not anti-mutant. We are simply pro-human. We do not and have never opposed the proposition that all men are entitled to equal rights under the law; what we oppose is this notion advanced by Ms. Tilby and others that mutants somehow deserve special rights.”  
  
“Is the right to privacy a special right, Mr. Creed? Is our protection against unreasonable searches and seizures a special right? The right to due process? Freedom of religion, speech, and the press? The right to assemble and petition the government for the redress of grievances?” Trish shook her head. “Let’s not mince words, Mr. Creed. Your organization has a long and storied history of hate crimes against mutants...”  
  
“Unsubstantiated rumors, Ms. Tilby,” Creed interrupted.  
  
“...and while you may think that the American people have forgotten,” Patricia said, not stopping for Desmond’s comment, “I assure you that we have not.”  
  
“You speak of the rights guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights, which our founding fathers passed down to us, yet the fact remains that in this case, a band of mutants launched a savage attack on a peaceful gathering of individuals engaged in the exercise of their inalienable right to freedom of speech and of religion.”  
  
“In all fairness, Mr. Creed,” Anderson broke in, “Reverend Stryker was clearly instigating his riot long before the group of mutants arrived, and based on what we could see in the recordings retrieved from local news sources and the Associated Press, he and his initiated the violence.”  
  
“They were provoked, Anderson,” Desmond replied. “The manner of this ‘Power Girl’s’ arrival was clearly intended to elicit exactly the sort of response that it did. Reverend Stryker and his followers are the victim of a deliberate attempt by agents of the mutant agenda to provoke them into intemperate action on a national stage. But even if you set that aside, consider the abilities of those mutants seen on the tape. Can there be any doubt that these children, these... teenagers, are every bit as dangerous as any military weapon system? This once again underlines just how badly we need that piece of legislation which congress still, irresponsibly, refuses to bring to the floor of either the House or the Senate: the Mutant Registration Act. We MUST know who these people are, where they are, how far their genetic influence extends, and most importantly, what they can do. The safety of America demands no less.”  
  
“Unfortunately,” Anderson began, looking at the time remaining for his segment, “We’ll have to leave it there...”  
  
"Speaking of the extent of genetic influence,” Tricia said, “Should you not be on such a list yourself, Mr. Creed? Who knows what powers your children might manifest thanks to your grandfather’s genes? Individuals similar to the mutant terrorist known as ‘Sabertooth’ could prove to be quite dangerous, could they not?"  
  
Desmond Creed’s face visibly reddened with anger. “My family’s personal history has no relevance to this debate, Ms. Tilby!” he said, maintaining his calm by a hairsbreadth. “Were you not speaking just moments ago of the right to privacy?”  
  
Anderson shot Tricia a warning look.  
  
Tricia, not looking contrite in the least, smiled. “Sorry, Anderson. I was just curious. If Mr. Creed is willing to advance as discredited and unpopular an idea as the old turnip-ghost Mutant Registration Act, he should be willing to consider what impact it might have on his own family. As should we all.”  
  
“And we’ll leave it there,” Anderson said, and the camera faded out.  
  
\---------------  
  
It’s funny how you never seem to read about just how boring it is to be strapped down on a table with your powers negated and totally helpless while other people decided your fate. Even worse, Karen kind of had to go to the bathroom, and her nose was itching like nobody’s business.  
  
“... um... hello?” she called.  
  
“You could always use your freezing breath to break free if it’s that bad, you know.”  
  
Karen glanced towards Kara, whose ghostly image was standing just to the left of the table. ‘I’m trying NOT to convince them that I’m some horrible supervillain.’  
  
“Just saying.”  
  
Karen didn’t reply.  
  
Silence.  
  
The door opened without warning, startling Karen on her table: she jerked against her restraints. A moment later, Emma Frost and a guy in a red and blue spider costume with a ‘web’ motif and a spider design on his chest came walking into the room. The spider guy stopped at the door.  
  
“... Hi.” Karen managed.  
  
Emma looked down at her. “We are not amused,” she said coldly.  
  
“... yeah...”  
  
“I would ask you to explain yourself,” Emma said, “But I believe I have gathered the necessary information.”  
  
Karen felt a stab of anger at that. She was starting to really dislike telepathy. Not that she’d ever say that out loud. … not that it mattered. Emma knew. Stupid telepathy.  
  
“Spider-Man is going to release you, and then we are going to go and talk this over with the Avengers. Before that happens, I am going to put a kind of temporary mental block in place to prevent you from accidentally destroying half the building on the way to the meeting room. It will not prevent you from intentionally utilizing your strength; it will simply alter your perception of how much strength you are applying at any given time. If you object, I will induce paralysis instead. I will also cause you to vomit uncontrollably any time you hear the word ‘practicable.’ I trust you do not object?”  
  
Karen shook her head.  
  
“Good.”  
  
Emma Frost, Karen decided, was kind of terrifying.  
  
\---------------  
  
Ten minutes later, they were gathered around a large meeting: Captain American, Iron Man. Miss Marvel. Spider Man. Scott Summers. Emma Frost. Kitty Pryde. Piotr ‘Peter’ Rasputin. Logan. Hank McCoy. Benjamin Grimm. Reed Richards. Susan Richards. Johnny Storm. Also present was Karen Starr - the instigator - and Noriko Ashida, leader of the team of mutants who had come to Karen’s rescue.  
  
The X-Men had met with their students. Had come to the meeting room. Had sat down with the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. Now they just had to work through this mess. And not let it devolve into violence.  
  
Watching Wolverine clench and unclench his fists every few seconds, Karen was sure they were all doomed.  
  
“I think it’s time we laid our cards out on the table,” Captain America said.  
  
Iron Man nodded, and then turned to Karen. “We know what you are, Ms. Starr. We know that you’re a Kryptonian. We know what your kind is capable of. What we don’t know is how you got here, and how she got here.” He opened his hand, projecting a holographic image of Divine as she had looked during the battle at the amphitheater. “I see from some of your faces that this comes as a surprise to some of you.”  
  
“Careful,” Kara said, her voice barely more than a whisper in Karen’s ear, “I don’t think you want to piss these people off.”  
  
‘Little late for that.’  
  
“Any more than you already have.”  
  
‘Right.’  
  
“This is not the first time the Avengers have encountered a Kryptonian,” Captain America said. A handful of assistants began passing out dossiers. “The file you’re now receiving is an account of our previous encounter with a member of this species, a native to a parallel Earth who calls himself ‘Superman.’  
  
Kara’s eyes went wide. “They know about...?” She could hardly ask the question. “Xander, if they’ve met Kal, then it’s possible that they might know a way to...” she trailed off again, her voice thick with emotion. “I could go home.”  
  
Karen felt a stab of homesickness go through her, then. It all came rushing back all at once. Home. Willow. Giles. Buffy. … God, she even missed CORDELIA, of all people. Emma had told her in no uncertain terms that she was not to tell these people that she and Kara were distinct personalities, and that made her nervous, too. Something must have shown on her face, because a moment later, Captain America said, “So you’ve heard of him.”  
  
Karen nodded. She hesitated, but at Kara’s approving nod, she said, “... He’s my cousin. Sort of.”  
  
\---------------  
  
“... and our moment of Geek tonight comes with the assistance of Bill Nye, better known as Bill Nye the Science Guy. Mr. Nye, thank you so much for agreeing to appear on the show.”  
  
Bill smiled. “Thank you, Rachel. Always happy to help.”  
  
Rachel nodded. “In light of recent events, Mr. Nye, I thought you might address the question of alien life, and what Power Girl’s apparent claim means for the world of science.”  
  
“It’s interesting. She’s not the first human-like alien that humanity has encountered, of course, but her claim of extraterrestrial origin, if true, would add another data point to what is in recent years become the fastest growing field of science: Xenobiology. The first thing your viewers should keep in mind is that while there’s no particular reason why an alien species would look humanoid, there is a perfectly good rationale for why a few of them might. It’s called convergence. It’s what happens when you take two creatures with body plans that are at least somewhat similar and introduce them to an environment that selects for a particular niche or function. It’s how we can end up with things like Tasmanian tigers and grey wolves - two animals that come from distinctly different branches of the genetic tree, but look reasonably similar if you don’t look too closely at the individual details, and fill the same niche within their respective ecosystems. Now, before we’d made contact with alien species, we’d never seen an example of convergent evolution between completely distinct and isolated forms of life...”  
  
\---------------  
  
“While I might be inclined to simply return Karen to her native dimension and wash my hands of her,” Iron Man said, “The only means by which we have ever traveled to that particular world is no longer accessible to us.”  
  
“I love you, too, Scrap Dude,” Karen said.  
  
He was glaring at her again. She was sure of it.  
  
“Xander!” Kara hissed warningly. And then she said, “Ask him how he knows it’s actually my native dimension, and not just one that’s closely related.”  
  
Karen did, and Reed was the one who answered: “I could run a few tests if I had access to the dimension in question. We would need to ensure that the unique dimensional frequencies of both Karen and the reality you encountered were an exact match. This is... quite fascinating. The Avengers and this... Justice League of America ultimately worked together to defeat this cosmic entity ‘Krona’ and foil his attempt to destroy both universes...?”  
  
“We can read it just fine ourselves,” Logan snapped irritably.  
  
“And your means of transport to this other universe was,” Beast looked down at the page, then back up at Iron Man. “Mjollnir?”  
  
Iron Man nodded.  
  
“How regrettable that the weapon of the thunder god is unavailable for our use,” Beast said.  
  
Reed Richards kept his face very carefully blank.  
  
“Actually,” Ben said, “It’s in Oklahoma. But that don’t matter, cause none of us can even pick it up.”  
  
Karen stared. “... Oklahoma?” she mouthed.  
  
“Unfortunately,” Iron Man said, “none of that addresses what actually happened.” He looked at Karen. “You may not have intended it, but your actions have put us all in a very difficult position. The claim of attempted assassination you made has proven particularly controversial. People are up in arms. They’re calling you delusional, and a liar. I suppose the X-Men have no direct evidence of criminal behavior on Stryker’s part? Nothing other than the word of your telepaths?”  
  
Every X-Man save Emma looked distinctly uncomfortable.  
  
“Karen,” Emma began, “Where DID you leave that journal?”  
  
All eyes went to Karen.  
  
“What journal?” Iron Man asked.  
  
Karen flushed. Kara spoke, and Karen repeated after her, though only Emma could hear that she was being given the words to say: “The journal of Matthew Risman, the professional assassin that works for Stryker. The one where he details his experience working for Stryker, and the jobs he’s done, and talks about how he used to feel guilty about what he did, before Stryker gave him clarity and showed him the path to the Lord. The one I hid next to the Balanced Rock before I went to confront Stryker.”  
  
Everyone in the room save Emma stared at Karen in surprise.  
  
Emma looked like the cat that had caught the canary. “Provided that my student can produce this journal, I trust there will be no need to allow S.H.I.E.L.D. to make an example of her?”  
  
Iron Man grimaced behind his mask, and Karen saw it - x-ray vision was really starting to freak her out, and she didn’t dare look at Miss Frost for fear that she would immediately know that Karen could see right through her clothes, and do something about it.  
  
‘Your fear is entirely justified, child,’ came Emma’s voice in her thoughts. Karen tried very hard not to shudder.  
  
“I don’t know if I can...” Iron Man began.  
  
“Tony, that’s enough,” Captain America said, with just a hint of disapproval.  
  
Iron Man matched gazes with the Captain for a long moment. And then he looked down. “Fine.”  
  
“What we should be discussing,” Emma continued, “Is Karen’s sister.” She gestured to the image that still floated above the table. “Divine.”  
  
All eyes went to Karen once more, and she felt extremely awkward. ‘Little help here?’ she thought.  
  
“Seriously? You can’t make something up?”  
  
‘I suck at improvisation!’  
  
“Well I suck at lying!”  
  
‘Think of something!’  
  
“... Ok, I think I have something...”  
  
Karen looked down. Kara began to speak her lie, and Karen repeated it for the benefit of everyone who wasn’t Emma Frost. A lie that was mostly true. “... She wasn’t always like this,” she said. And that was true - she’d formerly been a genetic sample taken without Kara’s knowledge, not an evil clone. “A man from my world by the name of Maxwell Lord took control of her with his power. He’s what’s called a mental dominant; he’s got a very specialized form of telepathy that allows him to...”  
  
Johnny grimaced. “Control other people’s minds?”  
  
Karen nodded. “He’s very, very powerful. He’s able to control minds on a global scale: he forced everyone in the world to forget that he had ever existed. His control is subtle, too. He doesn’t so much force you to do something as he introduces a set of facts into the equation that completely change your behavior. He doesn’t operate you like a puppet - he pushes, and... your friends are discussing dinner options, and you hear it as a discussion of plans for conquest, and when they protest their innocence, you hear further grandiose boasts. Or someone is eating a chicken dinner, and you see them eating a baby, or...” She trailed off, shuddering. “I don’t know what his plans were for Divine, but when I was pulled through, we were fighting, and I think she must have been pulled through with me. But I didn’t know she was here until she showed up earlier today.”  
  
Sue frowned. “Are you aware of any reliable means of detecting whether or not someone is under his influence?”  
  
Karen shook her head. “I’m not exactly an expert on the telepathic side of things.”  
  
“So,” Iron Man said, sounding more than a little displeased. “We have an extremely powerful, extremely lethal being who draws power from sunlight operating under the mental control of a villain from another dimension. Is that what you’re telling me?”  
  
Karen winced. “Well, when you put it like that...”  
  
\---------------  
  
In the end, there was little they could do but adopt an attitude of ‘wait and see.’ Aside from Karen herself, there were two people that Captain America and Iron Man were reasonably sure could deal with Divine: Thor and Sentry. …Thor was missing, and Sentry was becoming both increasingly unstable and increasingly unreliable. So it was that Karen and the New X-Men were at last returned to the grounds of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. Officially, they were all under house arrest until such time as they were cleared of any wrong-doing. Unofficially, with the journal now in the hands of the Avengers, things were looking as good as could be expected.  
  
The National Guard had come in force to the town of North Salem. A town with a population of a little over five thousand people had been completely overwhelmed by Stryker’s followers even before they started rioting, but now...  
  
There was no movement on the streets save soldiers when the Blackbird flew over head. It looked as though half the town had been looted. National Guard blockades were a regular feature, and traffic was still being diverted around the area. Outside the gates to the Xavier mansion, a diminished but still significant crowd remained, chanting anti-mutant slogans and facing off against a line of troops from both the National Guard and the Office of National Emergency.  
  
The road leading to the school bore signs of recent conflict.  
  
“... you guys came to get us even though THIS was happening?” Noriko asked incredulously.  
  
Scott nodded. “Not before recalling every available X-Man from around the world to protect the school, but yes.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Scott met Noriko’s gaze.  
  
“... Oh.”  
  
Nothing more was said, save that which needed no words to express.  
  
As she walked through the front door, Karen stretched a bit and sighed. “... be it ever so humble,” she murmured, with just a touch of bitterness and sarcasm coming through..  
  
“There’s no place like home,” Noriko finished, and meant it.  
  
\---------------  
  
Morning broke. A new day. A new chance. Risman’s journal hadn’t been recovered in time for the previous day’s news cycle, but it was headline news today. Divine had only just finished reading it, in fact. Huh. Son of a bitch allegedly was hiring assassins to assassinate mutants and their supporters. Risman had been arrested late last night, and the FBI was going to be taking Stryker into custody as soon as he was released from the hospital.  
  
She set the paper down.  
  
The police were looking for her after yesterday’s events. But so were plenty of people. About now, she was beyond caring. She’d spent the evening after the fight in space, exposing herself to the direct effects of the solar wind. If she was going to have to deal with Power Girl, she needed to be at full strength. Now she was.  
  
She had robbed a few dozen homes at around three A.M. this morning. Not something Max would be proud of, but Divine was determined to do whatever she had to in order to get back to him. She still had a purpose to serve in the other world. Humans spent their lives in doubt and fear, often lying to themselves, inventing a purpose to their lives, desperately wanting to believe that it wasn’t all just some accident. That it all had some meaning. And unlike the majority of the stinking mass of humanity, Divine did not have to wonder, did not have to fear, did not have to make up any sort of story: she knew exactly what her purpose was.  
  
Maxwell Lord had created her to stop the war before it could begin. The war between humanity and the metahumans. The war which was coming as surely as the sunrise. A war which she could hardly prevent while stuck in this miserable, backwards, worthless reality. That Power Girl was stuck here as well was infuriating. She’d acted irrationally. Reacted on instinct. Gone into battle against Power Girl and her allies and that surprisingly resilient robot without considering whether or not it was really in Max’s best interests.  
  
It had taken some doing, some asking of questions, some following of leads. It wasn’t something Max had really prepared her for. It was... frustrating.  
  
The newspaper burst into flames on the bench beside her. Damn. She needed to be more careful about that heat vision. It was so easy to let it get out of control. So very... easy.  
  
A man in a business suit sat down on the bench next to her, newspaper in hand.  
  
She gave him a look. For a moment, she thought about how easy it would be to tear him limb from limb. Or burn him to ash. Or freeze him. Hell, she could always lob him out into space. That trick was always good for a laugh.  
  
… no. He was a human. Unless he gave her a reason to kill him...  
  
“You’ve been a busy bee,” he said. “You’re in the newspaper and everything.”  
  
She looked up. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the blurry photo of her fighting Power Girl at that damned amphitheater the other day. She’d changed her clothing since then. Street clothes. Black leather pants. Red tank-top. Thin, black jacket. “Excuse me?”  
  
“Relax. I’m here to make an offer. Nothing more.”  
  
Her eyes narrowed. “All right. Talk.”  
  
“Young lady like you’s got needs, am I right? Interests? Things that she wants?”  
  
“Keep talking.”  
  
“My employer is prepared to provide those things. Wealth. Power. Men. Women, if that’s more your style. Maybe even a way home, if we both play our cards right.”  
  
Divine’s interest began to fade the moment the man went into his list, but at the words ‘a way home,’ he had her full and undivided attention. “What do you know about me?”  
  
“We know that you are not, as they say, ‘from around here.’ If going home is all you want, well, we’re prepared to assist you.”  
  
“For a price.”  
  
“Nothing’s free, kid. Not even salvation.”  
  
“How do I know you’re not just some crazy bastard who gets off on bullshit?”  
  
The man laughed. “You don’t.”  
  
Divine almost put a fist through his head right then and there. Almost. “If I decide to cooperate, and I find out you’re just jerking me around? I’m going to kill you and everyone you work for, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. We clear?”  
  
“Crystal.”  
  
She fell silent.  
  
He placed a business card with something hand written on it onto the park bench. “Give it some thought. If you decide you want to cooperate, go to this address. We’ll contact you within a week or two of your arrival there.”  
  
Divine looked down at the card. An address. Some place in a city called Stamford, Connecticut. The man rose to his feet.  
  
She watched as he walked away. New York bustled around her. The sun shone on her face.  
  
She clenched her fist.  
  
 **End Chapter 08**  
  
Author's notes:  
Next: Like the song says, 'we don't need no civil war'  
This time, things go more than a little differently...


	9. Identity Issues

Smoke still rose from North Salem, but the riot had, for the most part, begun to peter out. A vastly diminished crowd still chanted anti-mutant slogans outside of the Xavier Institute’s front gates. The towering shapes of four Sentinels stood just inside the gates.  
  
Funny how giant robots armed with weaponry straight out of a science fiction novel can break a crowd’s will to storm a building.  
  
Aircraft had been arriving at the school for most of the evening. Some government. Some private. Most carrying mutants. Already the mutant population at the school had topped five hundred. About twenty of those were students. Another twenty were prospective students. Another dozen were X-Men and former X-Men who had made it through the Decimation with powers intact, recalled from their various positions around the world.  
  
The children of Charles Xavier’s dream were coming home.  
  
The Blackbird had only just landed. Karen and the other New X-Men had been uncharacteristically silent on the trip back from Stark Tower. Perhaps the scolding they had received had something to do with that.  
  
“Of all the irresponsible...”  
  
“Were you even thinking?”  
  
“It may have been the right thing to do, Noriko, but it certainly doesn’t help any of us!”  
  
“Hey, back off! Karen saved Laurie’s life! You think we were going to leave her to face Stryker alone? We’re a team, and we don’t abandon our own! We’ll take whatever punishment you want to give us, but we did the right thing, and that’s all there is to it.”  
  
Now, Karen was walking back to ‘the dorm’ level. The rest of her team was walking with her.  
  
“Why didn’t you tell us you weren’t a mutant?” Cessily asked.  
  
Karen looked down. “I figured since this place is mutants only...”  
  
“There have been alien students in the past,” Cessily said. “You guys remember Warlock, right?”  
  
The others nodded.  
  
“I didn’t want...”  
  
Julian glared at Karen. “I get it. You didn’t want us to kick the shit out of you for not being a mutant. So instead, maybe we’ll kick the shit out of you for lying to us.”  
  
“Hellion,” Noriko began.  
  
“I’m not breaking ranks in front of the teachers, Nori,” Julian said, “Like you said, we’re a team. But that doesn’t mean I’m not pissed as all hell. Not just about the lie. Mr. Summers is right: we made things way the hell worse for mutants tonight. What are we supposed to do now?”  
  
Rockslide nodded in agreement.  
  
Karen couldn’t meet anyone else’s gaze. “Would it help if I said I was sorry?” she asked.  
  
“It might,” Julian replied. “Why don’t you give it a try, and we can find out.”  
  
Karen could feel her anger rising. Her body language became completely closed off. “Up yours, Julian,” she snapped, and then stormed off ahead of the rest of the group.  
  
“Karen, wait!” Cessily called, reaching out as if to call her back.  
  
Karen kept right on going.  
  
“Nicely handled,” Kara said in Karen’s head as she stormed away, leaving her team staring at her retreating back. “I think you’ve got a real future as a diplomat.”  
  
“Shut the hell up, Kara,” Karen hissed.

\---------------  
  
A New World in my View  
by P.H. Wise  
A Power Girl Crossover Fanfic  
  
Chapter 09: Identity Issues  
  
Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.  
  
\---------------  
  
Kara Zor-L woke with the dawn. The curtains were drawn, and Noriko was still asleep. She stretched in her bed, savoring the feeling of her sheets, her blanket, the mattress beneath her. It was good. Especially after the unpleasantness last night. It was all... good.  
  
She rose to her feet, her hair still mussed from sleep, and walked into the bathroom, rubbing absently at her eyes. For a long moment, she considered her reflection in the mirror. Wow. Bed-head aside, she was really starting to need a haircut. It was the day after her confrontation with Stryker. Almost two months since she’d arrived here. Almost two months of unchecked hair growth. Half an inch? An inch? She wasn’t sure. It was looking shaggy, though. She’d have to look into getting some enchanted scissors. Looking in the mirror still kind of weirded her out: before she’d come here, her body had been the body of a woman in her early twenties. After she’d arrived, her body had been the body of a seventeen year old. Every now and again, she’d get one of those sudden surges of teenaged hormones, and... well, she was just glad she wasn’t breaking out in pimples.  
  
As she had every morning since her arrival at the Xavier Institute, she stripped out of her pajamas, turned on the shower, and stepped into the stream of hot water. She savored it. The hot water on her skin. The motions of her fingers as she washed her hair. As she rinsed it. As she scrubbed herself with soap. Xander, she decided, was an idiot. He didn’t need to tell everyone his deepest darkest secrets, but... yeah. Some of that was her fault, though. She admitted that. She’d thrown a huge wrench into things by going after Stryker like that. But even so...  
  
She sighed.  
  
Then there was the strangest feeling, then, like something was passing through her. ‘... Oh God... Xander?’ And then...  
  
Xander Harris came to awareness suddenly standing in the shower, hot water streaming over her - or rather, Power Girl’s - body. “... What the hell?” she asked.  
  
Kara, now in ghostly form, looked concerned. “... OK, that was...”  
  
Kara gasped, once again in control of her body, sensation returning with all its full force and vigor. And then she was standing next to her body once more, with Xander behind the wheel. “... Weird.”  
  
They exchanged worried glances, last night’s argument all but forgotten in the face of what was, to them, a far more pressing problem.  
  
“... We’d better talk to Miss Frost,” they said in unison.  
  
\---------------  
  
 _Emma Frost’s Office  
Xavier Institute for Higher Learning_  
  
  
“I see,” Emma said. She was seated behind her desk, Karen pacing back and forth on the carpet in front of it.  
  
“You see?” Karen asked. “What do you mean, ‘you see?’” There was a note of panic in her voice.  
  
“Would you like my honest assessment of your situation?”  
  
“... Not really, no.”  
  
Emma smiled thinly. “Very well. I know exactly what’s wrong with you, and fixing it will be easy.”  
  
“Great,” Karen replied sarcastically.  
  
“Xander, calm down,” Kara said. “We’ll figure this out, we just have to...”  
  
“Calm down?!” Karen all but shrieked, interrupting Kara. “CALM DOWN?! I’M RANDOMLY LOSING CONTROL OF MY BODY, HALF THE TEAM HATES ME NOW, AND YOU WANT ME...” her sentence ended abruptly as Kara suddenly found herself in control of her body again, experiencing the full effects of her body’s emotional, adrenal spike. She took deep, regular breaths and counted to ten.  
  
Xander fell back into control of a significantly calmed body. “Damnit,” she muttered.  
  
“My body, Xander,” Kara said.  
  
“What?”  
  
“It’s my body, not yours.” She looked to Emma. “Is there anything you can do?”  
  
Emma Frost raised an eyebrow. “Is there anything you want me to do?” she asked.  
  
Kara sighed. “We... I don’t know. If we could find a way to return Xander to his real body somehow, or maybe clone a body for him...”  
  
Karen blinked. “Wait, you can do that?”  
  
“I can do that,” said a voice from behind Karen. Her adrenaline spiked. She jumped, whirled, stared.  
  
Stephen Strange stood in the doorway of Emma Frost’s office, leaning against his staff.  
  
“Hello, Stephen,” Emma said, her tone a cordial one. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice.”  
  
Doctor Strange nodded, glancing towards Karen for a moment as he spoke. “Karen Starr has made friends since she arrived in this dimension. It appears she is lucky to count Benjamin Grimm amongst them.”  
  
Karen stared for a moment, not sure what to make of that. Ben had something to do with Mr. Strange being here? And Emma had sent for him? Or asked Ben to? Doctor Strange knew she and Kara weren’t the same person? … Was that good or bad? She exchanged glances with Kara before looking nervously towards the good doctor. “... Er. Hi.” She looked Emma’s way questioningly.  
  
“He knows, Xander,” Emma said.  
  
Karen - Xander - let out a sigh, and a good half of it was relief. “OK. OK. I can deal. Look at me dealing.” She turned to Doctor Strange. “How much do you know?”  
  
“A good portion,” Stephen replied, shutting the door carefully behind him before walking across the room to have a seat in front of Emma’s desk, leaving the other chair for Xander. “But I’d like to hear it in your own words, if you don’t mind.”  
  
Xander sat down. “... Right.” And she told him. Told him about his life in Sunnydale. The Hellmouth. The Slayer. Vampires. Demons. His bet with Cordelia. The costume from ‘Ethan’s Costume Shop’ that she’d made him wear. How that costume had come from a character whose comic he’d actually liked and read. Doctor Strange interrupted only twice to ask clarifying questions: first about the Hellmouth, and second about Ethan’s costume shop. And then Xander told him about arriving here. A bright light, and then she was falling from the sky above Manhattan.  
  
Kara went next, describing her life, her friends. Terra. Her position as chairperson of the Justice Society of America. Her company, Starrware Industries. The events that had led up to her trip to the antarctic. Finding the underground facility. The fight with Divine. The tear in the world that swallowed them both. And then...  
  
“I woke up in Sunnydale.”  
  
Xander’s eyes widened. “You WHAT?!”  
  
Kara looked away.  
  
“And you waited till now to tell me, why exactly?!”  
  
Kara didn’t meet Xander’s gaze. “At first because I didn’t know you. Or anything about you. Or even that you had any connection to the place that I woke up.”  
  
“And later?”  
  
“I’m sorry, Xander,” Kara said. “I should have told you.”  
  
Xander’s glare did not fade in the slightest.  
  
Doctor Strange gestured for her to go on. She did.  
  
“I was surrounded by child-sized monsters, and they attacked, but I managed to defeat them without seriously injuring any of them. Then I went up into the air to see what I could...” she trailed off, and then tried again: “I could hear... Rao, it seemed like the entire town was screaming for help. I started rescuing people. Getting them out of harm’s way. There was an incorporeal girl with red-hair who said that everyone had been turned into their costumes.” She smiled faintly. “She was surprised to see me. I guess I know why she was so amused, now...” A pause. “She helped. Gathered up allies. Rescued one girl named Buffy who’d gone as a noblewoman, and another named Cordelia, who hadn’t turned into her costume.” Kara looked Xander’s way. “Her name was Willow.”  
  
Despite her anger, Xander smiled fondly at that. “That’s my Will,” she murmured.  
  
“Rupert Giles was the one who figured it out. That the costumes were the key. Something about Ethan worshiping a god named Janus. I don’t know what he did to undo it. He’d said I would end up back home when the spell ended. But one minute I was using my heat vision to fry a whole mess of vampires, the next... I don’t know. I think I dreamed for a while. Then I woke up outside that homeless shelter.” She looked to Doctor Strange. “Does that help you, Doctor?”  
  
Strange nodded. “I believe it does. At the very least, it gives me a place to start. Janus...” he trailed off, looking thoughtful. “I am a busy man, Mr. Harris. My position does not leave me very much free time, but I will return when I have found something.” He rose to his feet. “Mr. Harris. Miss Zor-L.” He looked to Emma. “Ms. Frost.” Without waiting for anything that might be interpreted as permission, he vanished in a swirl of smoke.  
  
Silence descended in the office.  
  
“... He seemed nice,” Kara said.  
  
Silence continued. And then Emma spoke up. “If there’s nothing else, Miss Starr, I’d like my office back.”  
  
And as quickly as that, Xander became Karen once more, and she flushed, and rose to her feet, and walked out of the office, her cheeks burning.  
  
\---------------  
  
The day turned out a long, warm, lazy summer day. A day for napping in the shade. A day for afternoon picnics in the park. A day for children, tree-forts, and adventures while adults fanned themselves in the shade of a back porch, with the promise of ice-cold lemonade flavored with sugar and nostalgia in equal parts. Naturally, Karen spent it trudging off by herself into the hedge maze on the grounds of the Xavier estate, trying to avoid everyone she knew: herself most of all.  
  
Things were finally settling down into something resembling normality at the school. The X-Men had circled the wagons, calling in their people from across the world. They were even going to start classes for the remaining students. A schedule had been posted. Workshops with various faculty. Meetings with advisors.  
  
Kara hadn’t made herself known since the meeting in Emma’s office, and Karen figured it was just as well; she didn’t particularly want to hear from the girl at the moment. So she walked, wandering through the maze. She could have flown, but that would have defeated the purpose: Karen wanted to be lost, and for a while, she was. It was... nice. The air was close in here, but not unpleasantly so. It smelled of grass, and of earth, and of growing things. She could hear birdsong drifting in from far away, and she smiled.  
  
She rounded a corner and came to the center of the maze. To her great disappointment, she was not alone: Noriko and David had apparently decided to take advantage of the day, and were seated on a bench on the far side of the center clearing, Noriko resting contentedly in his arms, their clothing mussed. David saw her first, and looked up. When he tensed, Nori noticed as well, and rose to her feet, looking embarrassed. “Oh,” she said. “Uh... hey, Karen.”  
  
“Hey,” Karen said, feeling awkward.  
  
David was on his feet, then, and now he was embarrassed as well. “I’d better get back,” he said. “I have a project I’m working on for Professor McCoy.”  
  
“I’ll go with you,” Nori said, but David gave her a look, and then she sighed. “Fine.”  
  
He headed off through the maze.  
  
“I’m guessing you’ve got one of those ‘I don’t want to talk to you but I want to talk to you’ situations,” Karen said.   
  
Nori smiled a ghost of a smile. “That obvious, huh?”  
  
Karen shrugged.  
  
“... the conversation last night ended badly,” Nori began.  
  
Karen folded her arms under her breasts, body language closed off.  
  
“You have to know that we’ve got your back, Karen. Hell, we came to rescue you, didn’t we?”  
  
“Did I need rescuing?” Karen asked.  
  
Nori gave Karen a look. “Sure, make this difficult, why don’t you? … I... Julian did have a point, though. If you tell him I said that, I’ll deny it, but he did. We’ve had alien team members before. Why **did** you lie?”  
  
“What, like you’ve proven yourself to be able to keep a secret?” Karen asked, her tone angry - angrier than Nori expected, from her sudden defensive posture.  
  
“What? When have I ever told one of your secrets?”  
  
“Are you serious? People STILL sing that stupid John Denver song at me when they see me, little miss,” she did a mocking imitation of Nori’s voice, “‘her power is totally to orgasm whenever she’s exposed to sunlight!’ You see why there might be some trust issues here?”  
  
Noriko looked pained. “Yeah... about that...”  
  
Karen waited.  
  
“I’m really sor...”  
  
“Well, well,” came a new voice - a harsh, male voice - from the far side of the clearing. “What have we here?”  
  
“Looks like a pair of X-brats wandering a little far from home,” said a second. Karen and Noriko turned. Toad and Erg stood at the far entrance to the clearing, each looking enormously pleased with himself.  
  
“You want something, Goggles?” Karen asked, an eyebrow raised.  
  
Toad smirked. “Maybe I do,” he said, moving forward. “Maybe I want to teach a pair of X-brats that they aren’t the be all end all.”  
  
“Fucking over-privileged X-bitches,” Erg muttered.  
  
“Yes, that too,” Toad agreed. He returned his attention to the two girls. “Or maybe I just want to appreciate the sight of two extremely attractive young bitches,” he said. He was about to go on with another menacing statement.  
  
“Try the pound,” Karen quipped, interrupting whatever he’d been about to say. Noriko didn’t quite laugh at that, but she came close.  
  
“Funny.” Toad said. “Maybe not so funny after we’ve beaten that pretty face in.”  
  
“You really don’t want to mess with us right now,” Noriko said.  
  
“I don’t know,” Erg said, “I think we might.” He raised his eyepatch, sending a brilliant blast of lightning at the pair.  
  
Noriko sidestepped, moving faster than she had any right to. Karen took the lightning on the chin, and if it hurt her, she made no sign of it. Nori dodged a second blast, and returned one of her own.   
  
Toad leaped into the air, his tongue lashing out lightning quick towards Karen. It wrapped around her neck, acidic saliva dripping its way down it, reddening her skin slightly. He used his tongue to reel himself in towards her.  
  
Without thinking, Karen punched him in the stomach.  
  
… her fist came out the other side.  
  
Erg and Noriko stopped in their tracks, staring as Toad’s tongue went slack and he collapsed to the ground in a heap, bleeding out.  
  
Dying.  
  
Karen staggered backwards, her arm sheathed in blood, a sick horror rising up from her belly. “I... I didn’t mean to...”  
  
“You killed him!” Erg screamed. “You stupid bitch, you killed him!”  
  
Karen shook her head in denial. “No... no... no, no, no...”  
  
“Karen,” Noriko said, “Karen, stay with me. You have to take him to Josh! He can help, but you have to take him right now!”  
  
Karen’s gaze cleared. “I... right.” She scooped him up. “Josh,” she muttered. One moment she was there. The next, not. A sonic boom erupted into the heart of the hedge-maze. Toad was bleeding out. A trail of little droplets followed her path as she blazed a trail through the mansion, shattering several windows, breaking through three doors before she finally found the target of her search: Josh Foley.  
  
He was in the cafeteria. A dozen other students were present. His eyes widened in shock as she blurred into the space in front of him and abruptly stopped, carrying the dying mutant.  
  
“Please,” Karen said. “Can you save him?” There was a note of desperation in her voice. That awful, bubbling dread was growing.  
  
Josh stepped forward. “I can,” he said. “I can. You got him to me in time.” And with those words, Karen felt the weight of dread lift from her shoulders. Josh placed his hands on Toad’s chest, and the horrific hole in his stomach began to close. When it was gone, he stepped back.  
  
The doors swung open, and Scott Summers rushed in with the newly arrived Ororo Munroe only a few steps behind. They came upon Karen, covered in blood, holding the equally bloody if unconscious Mortimer Toynbee, and a huge pool of blood on the floor around them, surrounded by students.  
  
“Toad?” Ororo asked, surprised at his presence.  
  
Scott was not amused. “What, exactly, is going on here?” he said.  
  
Dead silence.  
  
Scott assessed the situation, took in every detail. Made his decision.“Take him to medical,” he said. “And then meet me in my office. NOW, Miss Starr.”  
  
Karen did as she was told. “... I’m pretty sure I said I was done being the universe’s butt-monkey,” she muttered as she left the cafeteria.  
  
The universe did not reply.  
  
\---------------  
  
Karen shut the door behind her as she left Scott Summers’ office, feeling completely humiliated. He had no been sparing in his criticism of what he saw, perhaps rightly, as an out of control student, and he had explained in detail exactly how she was failing to live up to the very high expectations that they had of her. She’d been so much in shock over what happened that she’d done little more than sit there and take it. Now, as she left the office, she scrubbed at her eyes, trying to force away her tears before they could happen.  
  
She wasn’t going to cry, damnit.  
  
She was still covered in blood. She desperately needed a shower. She made her way up towards her room.  
  
Ten minutes later, Karen, clean again if not happy, collapsed onto her reinforced, oversized bed, and was lost to the world.  
  
She didn’t know how much later it was - hours, probably - when a knock came at the door, startling her back into the world of awareness. She didn’t respond to it.  
  
Presently, the door opened, and the Stepford Cuckoos filed into the room.  
  
“I’m really not in the mood for visitors right now,” Karen muttered.  
  
“Good,” Irma replied. “Because we’re not here to visit. We’re here to offer you a way to control your powers.”  
  
Karen blinked. “... What?”  
  
“It’s simple,” Phoebe said. “Kara knows how to control her powers. You don’t. Not really. So we take that knowledge, and we copy it into your mind.”  
  
There was a long silence as that idea sank in. “... You can do that?” Karen asked incredulously.  
  
“Not quite as easily as snapping our fingers,” Irma said, “but yes, we can do that.” The other two nodded in agreement.  
  
Karen looked down. “... I guess people are talking, huh?”  
  
Irma sat down next to Karen, put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not the first person to suffer from power-incontinence, Xander,” she said gently.  
  
Karen blinked. And then her eyes widened. And then she blushed deeply. “Do we really have to call it that?”  
  
Irma rolled her eyes. “Do you want us to do this or not?”  
  
“There’s more to it than that,” Kara said, appearing suddenly next to Celeste.  
  
Karen gave Kara a sour look, not being particularly pleased to see her.  
  
“Emma and I talked about this as an option,” Kara went on. “It’s not as simple as a copy/paste. A part of your mind would be overwritten by a part of mine. A small part, but still a part. We’ve got no way of knowing how it would affect you.”  
  
“You saw what happened today, didn’t you?” Celeste asked.  
  
Kara nodded. “I saw.”  
  
“And?”  
  
Kara looked away.  
  
“Great," Karen said. "So the big decision comes down to the donut boy.” Everyone looked at her. “... girl,” she conceded. A pause. “... Let’s just do this, OK? What do I have to do?”  
  
“Take my hand,” Irma said.  
  
Karen looked at her, then. Really looked at her. Irma blushed beneath her stare. Karen took her hand.  
  
“Open your mind, Xander,” Irma murmured, leaning in close. “You’re going to feel something a little weird. Try not to overreact.” Almost immediately, there was the strangest sense of something... wriggling... in her thoughts. A presence joined her mind.  
  
Irma. Celeste. Phoebe. They were in her thoughts, and they were...  
  
 _Beautiful._  
  
“All done,” Irma announced.  
  
Karen frowned. “I don’t feel any different.”  
  
“Good,” Kara said. “Let’s hope that continues.”  
  
“Let’s hope,” Irma echoed with a smile. The girls rose to their feet, then. “Try something,” Celeste said.  
  
“Er... like what?”  
  
Phoebe shrugged. “Hit the table. Don’t break it.”  
  
Karen looked to the coffee table, then to her fist. She drew it back reluctantly, and then, after taking a deep breath, struck the table palm first. The slap of her palm impacting with the table rang loud in the room, but that was all.  
  
Karen cried a little, and rubbed her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, and meant it.  
  
Irma brushed a tear from Karen’s cheek. “Any time,” she murmured.  
  
And then the three girls were leaving. And the door shut behind them with a click.  
  
Karen sat there for a good ten minutes, overwhelmed, nervous, afraid that maybe there would be consequences to this, but mostly just relieved. Then the sound of laughter from down the hall drew her out of her reverie. Kara was gone again. Gone to wherever she went when she wasn’t talking. Probably just watching behind the eyes.  
  
She stood up. Went to investigate. Left her room behind, wiping her eyes once more as she did so. The sound of voices was coming from... she wasn’t sure what room that was, but it wasn’t a dorm. She opened the door.  
  
“Brava, David,” Julian said loudly to general laughter as Karen walked into the dormitory level’s sitting room on the dormitory level. “Brava.”  
  
Karen felt a stab of shame before she realized that the intended insult hadn’t been directed at her; Julian, Cessily, David, and Laurie were gathered around a smooth wooden table playing a board game that Karen wasn’t familiar with, and whatever David had just done, it had not been to Julian’s advantage at all.  
  
“It’s funny because it’s humiliating to be a woman,” Cessily deadpanned.  
  
“That’s not exactly what I meant...” Julian tried to backpedal, provoking further laughter.  
  
“So he just insulted all three of us,” Laurie said, though she was smiling.  
  
“Hey, it’s totally insulting to have your gender misidentified!” Julian protested.  
  
“Keep digging, Julian,” David replied, shaking his head in bemusement. He noticed Karen, then. “Hey Karen,” he called. “Want to join us?”  
  
“Karen,” Laurie echoed, smiling warmly at the sight of her, “Join in!”  
  
Karen thought about it, thought about all the problems she’d had today, all the stress, all the bad feelings. All the times she’d lost her temper, or had someone angry at her in turn. The incident with Toad. Her terror that she might have killed someone - even a bully. The Cuckoos. Everything. And despite the unintentional embarrassment their banter had brought her, her fears that she’d alienated her new friends evaporated, and for a moment, the weight of her mistakes was lifted from her shoulders. She grinned. “Yeah,” she said, “That’d be great.”   
  
She pulled up a chair and sat down, and the game - and the laughter and the camaraderie it brought with it - went on well into the evening.  
  
\---------------  
  
Hope burns eternal in the human breast. So too in the Kryptonian’s. The following morning found Divine, almost in spite of herself, floating in the air a few hundred feet above the address she’d been given in Stamford, Connecticut, watching. She’d sworn that she didn’t need help. Didn’t need anyone but Max.  
  
The entire day spent in fruitless search, and most of the night. She hadn’t even realized she’d arrived in Stamford until she was nearly upon the address she’d been given. And now, watching the four people in the home below, she was afraid to go in. Not because she thought they might be able to harm her.  
  
She was afraid. And she hoped.  
  
The descent to the front porch took more courage than she’d ever mustered in her short life. The sound of voices within. Friendly banter. She felt a sudden, awful sense of longing for... she wasn’t sure what.  
  
She knocked on the door.  
  
The friendly voices ceased as if they had never been there.  
  
She watched with her x-ray vision as the four occupants put on costumes and otherwise got into position.  
  
Divine knocked again.  
  
At last, a woman’s voice called out, “Who is it?”  
  
“I was told to come here,” Divine said, her voice uncertain.  
  
“Who told you?”  
  
She held up the business card where it could be seen from the door’s peephole.  
  
A moment later, the door unlocked, then opened.  
  
Then she was inside. Then she was recognized. “Hey,” the guy with purple hair said, “You’re that chick from the news.”  
  
“My name is Divine.”  
  
Silence. Then the man with the long white hair nodded. “Nitro,” he said.  
“Speedfreek,” said the purple-haired man.  
“Coldheart,” said the woman who had spoken initially, even as she sheathed a pair of glowing swords.  
“Cobalt Man,” said the armored figure.  
  
Divine smiled. “I’m happy to meet you all. I’m here for the meeting.”  
  
They seemed to know what that meant, each nodding in turn.  
  
“Welcome to the club,” Coldheart said, and smiled.  
  
It wasn’t Max. But it would do. For now.  
  
 **End Chapter 09**


	10. What We've Got Here

“OK, how many super villains are we talking, Speedball?”  
  
Namorita crouched in the bushes with the other New Warriors and their camera crew, observing the people moving about in the house. Nice place. Suburban neighborhood. Warm day. A little too warm for her tastes. It’d been hours since she’d been submerged in water.  
  
“Three,” Speedball said, his blonde hair flowing in the faux-wind created by his kinetic field. “No, wait. I think I see Coldheart in the backyard taking out the trash. That’s four total, and all four are on the FBI’s most-wanted list, right?”  
  
Microbe and Night Thrasher were on either side of her. Good friends.  
  
The voice of the producer for their reality show at the MRVL Network spoke in her earpiece. “Cobalt Man, Coldheart, Speedfreek, Nitro... yep, they all broke out of Ryker’s three months back, and all of them have records as long as your arm. Coldheart fought Spider-Man a couple of times and - get this - Speedfreek almost took down the Hulk.”  
  
Namorita felt a thrill of fear at that. Seriously? Night Thrasher gave voice to her thoughts a moment later: “He what?”  
  
“These guys are totally out of our league, man,” Microbe said. “No way we should be going in there.”  
  
Speedball grinned. “But think about the **ratings** , Microbe. This could be the best episode of the entire second season. Six months we’ve been driving around the Midwest looking for goofballs to fight, and the best we’ve managed so far was a bum with a spray can and a wooden leg. This could be the episode that really puts New Warriors on the map, dude. We beat these guys and people stop bitching about Nova leaving the show to go back into space.”  
  
Namorita nodded. That made sense. “So what’s the plan?” she asked.  
  
Speedball shot her a harsh look. “The plan is you spend five more minutes in makeup, Namorita. You think people wanna see that great big ugly zit on your chin?”   
  
Her cheeks burned, and in that moment, utterly humiliated in front of the camera, Namorita hated Speedball just a little. The makeup people went to work on her chin.  
  
“OK, now we...”  
  
“Uh oh,” Night Thrasher said, cutting Speedball short. “We’ve been marked.”  
  
Coldheart had spotted them. She raced into the house. “Everyone in costume!” she shouted, “It’s a raid!”  
  
“GO!” Speedball yelled. And they went. Speedball flung himself through the window, catching Speedfreek totally off guard, tackling him, taking him through the wall and into the front yard in a spray of debris. “I’d heard that clothes make the man, Speedfreek,” he said, clearly posing for the camera as he delivered a powerful blow to the purple-haired man’s jaw, “and in your case it’s TOTALLY TRUE!”  
  
Namorita and Night Thrasher ganged up on Coldheart, and Coldheart was not amused. Funny how she didn’t look particularly villainous in her jogging outfit. Then she brought out her glowing swords, and Namorita reluctantly conceded that perhaps she was a credible threat after all.  
  
“Wait a minute,” Coldheart said, eyes narrowing suspiciously, “I know you guys. You’re those idiots from that reality show! I’m not getting taken down by Goldfish-Girl and the Bondage Queen.”  
  
Namorita slipped inside her defenses and clocked her one, which made an opening for Night Thrasher: a kick to Coldheart’s midsection sent her tumbling, swords falling from her grasp. “Can we cut the part where she called me the Bondage Queen?” Night Thrasher whined.  
  
“Oh, yeah,” Microbe replied from where he had just dealt with Cobalt-Man, “Because Night Thrasher sounds so much straigh...” He was cut off by Speedball’s sudden appearance, coming flying out backwards through the house at high speed, sending out another spray of debris. He hit a tree and bounced off it with equal velocity.  
  
“You think you can beat me with kinetic force?!” he yelled as he flew back at whatever had hit him.  
  
A gorgeous, stacked, black haired white girl flew through the hole Speedball had left in the house when he’d gone through and spiked him into the ground with a blow that would have pulped a normal human. Not Speedball. He bounced, soaring into the the air a thousand feet straight up before he started to come back down.  
  
“...the hell is that?!” Night Thrasher asked.  
  
Namorita recognized her. The girl had been on the news a week back. She’d fought the X-Men and this weird pink robot thing to a standstill. “Everyone, get back! Get the hell back! She’s out of our...”  
  
“You think you can come here and hurt MY friends?!” the girl all but shrieked.  
  
“Divine...” Coldheart said, staring at the girl. “Get ‘em!”  
  
Namorita charged, flying at Divine. “Get clear!” she shouted, hoping to buy time for her team. Divine seized her by the wrist, pivoted, and threw her through the wooden fence that separated the yard from the next one over. Namorita had a brief impression of oncoming blue before she splashed down in a swimming pool. That was lucky! Now she’d be charged up. No way could this bitch take her charged up.  
  
Namorita flew up out of the water and over the broken fence just in time to see Divine take a blow to the face from one of Night Thrasher’s escrima sticks. He cried out in pain and dropped the stick. She was descending, about to punt the bitch away from her teammates.  
  
Divine ducked under her kick, and Namorita plowed a trench from one side of the yard to the other. Then the Kryptonian caught a blast of pepper-spray to the face from Night Thrasher, and though she had gotten her hands up in time, she still screamed in agony. Namorita had only just recovered from her missed attack when Divine moved forward almost faster than even she could perceive, rip off Night Thrasher’s leg as if his armor wasn’t even there, and then throw the bloody limb at Microbe. Microbe screamed in horror, and frantically gestured, trying to force the germs in Divine’s body to overwhelm her.  
  
Namorita delivered a one-two full strength combo straight into Divine’s midsection, sent her plowing back into the house, which collapsed on top of her with an awful roar.  
  
Speedball landed. “FUCK!” he shouted.  
  
Night Thrasher moaned, clutching at the bloody stump that was still spurting blood. “Oh, shit, oh shit, my leg... oh god...”  
  
“We need to get paramedics here RIGHT FUCKING NOW,” Speedball yelled, and the call went out.  
  
Then the rubble shifted. All eyes went to it. “... oh hell,” Namorita muttered, followed by a few choice curses in Atlantean.  
  
Divine burst free from the wreckage of the collapsed house. “You stupid bastards,” she said. “You’re all gonna die here.”  
  
Microbe ran for it. Divine picked up a fallen brick and threw it at the back of his head with godlike force. There was a sick crack, and Microbe collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.  
  
Speedball zoomed forward, his kinetic field charged with every impact he’d taken thus far, and channeling all of that into a blow he was sure would crush this enemy. She was ready for his blow: she took it on the chin, and though the blow blasted her backwards, she did not lose her footing. “Immune to kinetic impact, huh? Let’s see how you do against heat.” Her eyes flashed red, and she fired off a massive beam of coherent red light. Speedball vanished in the blast, and when it faded, all that was left was bits of ash floating in the wind.  
  
“You bitch!” Namorita screamed. “You killed them! You evil bitch!”  
  
“Are you going to run away like your friend?” Divine asked casually.  
  
Namorita readied herself. She knew she couldn’t win, but if she was going to die, she’d die like an Atlantean warrior. She moved, lunging forward, attempting to land a full strength blow to Divine’s face.  
  
She never got the chance. Divine sidestepped her attack and then hit her in the chest harder than she’d ever been hit in her life. She flew backwards, through the fence, across the street, and into the side of a school bus. Pain overwhelmed her. She was bleeding, and the cameras were still rolling, and...  
  
The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was one of the villains they’d come to stop - Nitro - sprinting away down the street.  
  
\----------------  
  
A New World in my View  
by P.H. Wise  
A New X-Men Crossover Fanfic  
  
Chapter 10: What We’ve Got Here  
  
Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. This chapter contains dialogue taken from ‘Civil War #1.’ Marvel owns that, too.  
  
\----------------  
  
 _Stark Tower  
New York City  
12:03 PM_  
  
“... to our viewing audience, we’re just getting confirmation... but according to the Associated Press, there’s been a disaster in Stamford, Connecticut... initial reports are indicating dozens killed or injured, and significant property damage including several private residences and an elementary school...”  
  
Tony Stark looked up at the monitor, and a cold dread welled up inside his heart. He didn’t know how or why, but he was sure this was going to be bad. It took him all of six seconds to bring up the news feed. Another two to scan the headlines already popping up across the Internet.  
  
“We’re getting more,” the anchor said. This was going out as soon as the network got the info. No fact checking. No analysis. No waiting. They were dumping raw information onto the airwaves. “The New Warriors... the superhero team and popular reality TV stars known as the New Warriors are involved somehow. We’re trying to get a news chopper into the area...”  
  
Other news sources weren’t much better. ‘STAMFORD DESTROYED! HEROES FEARED RESPONSIBLE!’ read the headline on one site. ‘NEW WARRIORS MURDERED BY X-MEN ALLY! REVEREND STRYKER EXONERATED!’ another proclaimed. The next ten minutes were chaos in the news sources as they struggled to get the story straight, but it was time enough for Tony to cancel all his meetings for the day, then send out a call to his lawyer, another to S.H.I.E.L.D., and a third to Captain America, who had already seen it and sent out a call for the Avengers to assemble.  
  
This was going to be bad. It was up to them to make sure it didn’t get worse than it had to be.  
  
\----------------  
  
 _Xavier Institute for Higher Learning  
North Salem, New York  
12:34 PM_  
  
Karen reveled in her new-found control of her abilities. Every restriction she’d ever had to worry about was now gone, and she was fully in command of her body, and it felt... glorious. She was on the basketball court with six other students: all of them against her. As Xander, she had never been the most physically adept, but now... she almost giggled as she dodged the green-skinned kid - Victor - and flew up to make another slam dunk. Her: 30. Them: 0. She had never felt so exhilarated. So...  
  
“... she doesn’t have to rub our noses in it...” Victor muttered to Alani, the tattooed redhead that he always seemed to be hanging out with. It was quiet enough that Karen would never have heard it if she hadn’t had super senses, but as was...  
  
Her sense of elation vanished like a popped soap bubble, and she sank down to ground level.  
  
“Isn’t she supposed to avoid direct sunlight?” came a voice from across the yard: Cessily had spotted her on the court. She was walking by with Noriko and David. “Seems like she’s taking it in every chance she can get, now...”  
  
Other conversations. Not related to her. Students worrying about the new school year. Students still in shock over what had happened not so long ago.  
  
She met the eyes of the opposing team on the basketball court, some looking hurt, others looking annoyed, but none of them neutral. “... Sorry,” she said.  
  
Victor took the ball. “Not your fault, I guess. No offense, but I don’t think it’s fair for you to use your powers in this game.”  
  
Karen felt a stab of resentment, but she nodded. “Yeah.” She headed off the court. A moment later, new teams were assigned, and the game continued. Without her.  
  
‘Karen, I need you in Mr. Summers’ office as soon as possible.’  
  
She jumped at the ‘sound’ of Emma Frost’s mental voice in her head, looked around, realized what had happened, and headed off towards the main building, wondering what she’d done this time.  
  
\----------------  
  
“What.” Karen couldn’t quite process what she was being told. Once more that yawning chasm had opened up beneath her feet, and her brain needed a few moments to regain the cognitive faculties to put together a more articulate response.  
  
Scott Summers exchanged glances with Emma Frost. “I know you didn’t ask for this, Karen, but your twin just murdered a team of super heroes.”  
  
“No,” Karen said, her thoughts still moving sluggishly. “Go back to the part where there are superhero reality TV shows?”  
  
Scott looked annoyed. “This isn’t a joke. People are dead. Good people.”  
  
The chasm seemed to grow ever deeper. Karen could feel the blood racing through her veins. Could hear the heartbeats of Scott and Emma both. Could hear three voices, far away, crying for help, followed by the distant sound of a car crash. Super hearing. “I need to sit down,” she said.  
  
“You are,” Scott replied.  
  
“Oh. Good.”  
  
“We realize that this is something of a shock,” Emma said, and Karen tried very hard not to giggle.  
  
“Pull yourself together,” Scott said. “We need you for this. We need you here, focused, 100%. Understand?”  
  
Karen tried. And then Xander wasn’t in the driver’s seat anymore. Her body swayed, and then Kara took control, steadying it, and looking Emma in the eye. “She passed out,” she said.  
  
Scott looked at Emma questioningly.  
  
Emma looked annoyed. “I had hoped...” she shook her head and looked to Scott. “Darling, I’m afraid I haven’t been completely honest with you.” Even as she spoke, Emma got a strange look on her face as she considered her boyfriend.  
  
Scott looked entirely unsurprised. “Go on,” he said.  
  
“It’s me, sir,” Kara said. “My situation is a bit different from what you may have been led to believe.” She waited a beat before continuing. “Karen and I...”  
  
“Are two people sharing the same body,” Scott finished.  
  
Kara’s eyes widened in surprise. “Wha-?”  
  
“Give me a little credit here,” Scott said. “Your mannerisms are noticeably different. You try, but you don’t share the same speech pattern either. Karen slouches, and you don’t. Karen is almost completely disorganized, you’re markedly more so. I could go on.”  
  
Kara flushed red. “... Damn,” she said. “Apparently, I suck at being secret identity girl even when my secret identity IS a completely different person.”  
  
Scott smirked.  
  
“OK,” Kara said. “Ms. Frost, I need you to keep Karen asleep until this is over. Only one of us can be running the body here, and I’m not sure if she can do what needs to be done. I hope she does, but if I’m wrong...”  
  
Emma considered Kara for a moment, and then acquiesced. “Very well,” she said.  
  
“Hold on,” Scott said. “As inconvenient as it may be, I’d like to get Karen’s input on this. This affects her, and she doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who takes well to having decisions made for her. You’ve already gone around her more than you should have. Let’s avoid making things worse.”  
  
Kara’s lips thinned. “Fine. But let’s do it quickly.”  
  
Karen came back to awareness. “Oh... hell...” she muttered. And then saw Emma Frost leaning in over her. “GAH!” she yelped, and stumbled back.  
  
“Welcome back,” Kara said, her spectral form once more standing next to Karen once again.  
  
“... I’m getting really sick of that,” Karen muttered.  
  
“You may wish we’d left you unconscious in another moment,” Kara said. “Can you deal?”  
  
Karen took a few deep breaths. “... OK,” she said. “I can deal. What do we need to do?”  
  
“An interview with CNN,” Emma said.  
  
Karen stared.  
  
Scott glanced at Emma, then looked to Karen. “It doesn’t have to be you that does it. It could just as easily be her.” He gestured at Kara.  
  
… Mr. Summers knew about Kara? Oh hell. Karen felt another surge of panic. “What?!”  
  
Emma looked faintly amused. “I am ‘translating’ telepathically between Scott and Kara. I felt it would help things go more smoothly if all parties involved in the conversation could, in fact, communicate.”  
  
“WHAT!?”  
  
“Calm down, Karen.”  
  
And just like that, Karen’s rising panic vanished as if it had never been there. “... You did that, didn’t you?” she asked, looking suspiciously at Emma.  
  
Emma’s amusement was now replaced by irritation. “Would you prefer I allow you to needlessly delay us with another panic attack? Be useful or begone, Karen. We have no time for your childishness.”  
  
Karen felt like she’d been slapped. Bitterness rose up in her, and she clenched her teeth, but she nodded. “OK,” she said, her tone icy, “What, exactly, is going on, and what, exactly, do I need to do?”  
  
Emma’s phone buzzed. She checked it and grimaced. “... Wonderful. Valerie Cooper is on her way up.”  
  
“What does that mean?” Karen asked.  
  
“It means we need to act quickly,” Emma replied.  
  
“We realize that we’re asking a lot of you, Karen,” Scott said, “And if you can’t or for any reason don’t want to do the interview, you’d better tell us now.”  
  
“And you’ll put Kara in charge and have her do it, right?” It was hard to hide the bitterness in her voice.  
  
“Yes,” Emma said bluntly.  
  
“Maybe you should, then,” Karen said. Bitter? Angry? Oh, yes. “Apparently, the only thing I’m good at are screwing things up, getting blamed for whatever the latest thing is that Kara’s done, or having other people’s problems dumped on my lap, right?”  
  
“Karen, wait,” Kara began. But Karen didn’t wait. She zoomed out of the office and slammed the door behind her. … which had the side-effect of splintering the door.  
  
Scott opened his mouth.  
  
“Say it, and you’re on the couch for a week,” Emma said warningly.  
  
Scott shut his mouth, and smirked.  
  
\----------------  
  
“They’re counting on us, Xander,” Kara said. “You can’t just run away.”  
  
Karen ignored Kara Zor-L, zooming down the long halls of the Xavier mansion.  
  
“XANDER!” Kara shouted.  
  
No response. Kara would have ground her teeth if she could control them to do so.  
  
Karen stopped short at the door to her room: the door was closed, but Karen could see through that: the room was occupied. Noriko and David were...  
  
Oh.  
  
Karen kept going, wanting nothing so much as to scream at the top of her lungs. Not being able to go hide in her own room wasn’t that big of a deal, but added to everything else...  
  
“Karen?”  
  
Karen looked up. Irma. Standing in front of the open door to the room she shared with her sisters, wearing a white tank top and blue jeans. “Irma, hey.”  
  
Irma smiled. “How did you know?”  
  
Despite her unhappiness, Karen blushed, and Irma gave her a stern look.  
  
“You can tell us apart by our NAVELS?” Irma asked, sounding mock-scandalized by the idea. “… Xander Harris, are you looking at me through my clothes?”  
  
“No,” Karen lied.  
  
“Liar,” Irma said, though now she seemed amused.  
  
“... I’m only human,” Karen said.  
  
“Again with the lying,” Irma replied, and Karen blushed so deeply that it reached her ears.  
  
Irma looked Karen in the eye, and whatever she found there, it inspired a look of sympathy. “... Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.  
  
Karen sighed. “If you promise that by ‘talk’ you don’t mean ‘reprogram my brain with your telepathic powers.’” she said.  
  
“I’ll see what I can do,” Irma said.  
  
“... Good enough.”  
  
Karen stepped into the room, and Irma shut the door behind her.  
  
\----------------  
  
Namorita woke up, and for one blinding moment, all she knew was pain. She tried to scream, but she had no breath. Something was in her mouth. Something was going down her throat. Her eyes shot open. She couldn’t move. Where was Divine?! Was she still...  
  
“Peace, cousin.” It was Namor’s voice. The rising panic was snuffed out. “You have been grievously wounded, but you are in the hands of healers.”  
  
She turned her head, and she realized suddenly that she was lying on a hospital bed submerged in a low set gleaming silver tank not four feet tall and filled with water. The sounds of Atlantean chants mingled with the regular beep of her vital signs from the human machines. It was water. She had woken up and tried to breathe the air, and water had gone into her lungs. Not really that big of a deal for her. “...how... long?” she asked. Or tried to. All that came out was a gurgle, and not because of the water.  
  
He must have guessed her meaning. “Hours,” Namor replied. “Rest now. There will be time enough for questions when you are healed.”  
  
With a shuddering sigh, and still nearly crippled by pain, Namorita sank back into the comforting depths of unconsciousness.  
  
\----------------  
  
“How is she?” Reed Richards asked. He and Sue had come to the hospital as soon as they’d heard. … apparently, Namor had as well, and when they arrived, the King of Atlantis was already engaged in a loud argument with the hospital staff. But now, all of that was settled. Now, Namorita Prentiss was being treated by her own.  
  
“She will live,” Namor replied.  
  
“More than can be said for her team-mates,” Sue said, and Namor nodded.  
  
Namor met Reed’s gaze. “I understand there are tapes.”  
  
“The film crew escaped more or less unharmed.”  
  
“A record of the attack,” Namor continued, “and of the woman who dared to strike down Atlantean royalty.”  
  
“Namor, the Avengers will handle...”  
  
“We take care of our own, Doctor Richards,” Namor said, his voice cold, “And we do not allow the attempted murder of our royal family to go unanswered. Show me the tape.”  
  
Reed exchanged glances with his wife, and then sighed. “...Fine,” he said. “Come to the Baxter building in an hour. I’ll have it ready for you then.”  
  
Namor nodded. “... thank you, Doctor Richards.”  
  
Reed looked towards the grievously wounded yet healing girl in the water, and his heart sank. Tony was right: this was going to get worse before it got better.  
  
\----------------  
  
“Am I the Zeppo?” Karen asked.  
  
Irma raised an eyebrow. “Zeppo?”  
  
“Right. Er...”  
  
“Tell me what happened, Xander.”  
  
Karen shook her head. “I... look, all I’ve done since I got here was cause trouble, get stuck with other people’s messes, and take a back seat to...” she trailed off, then tried again, “Back home, my best friends are heroes. Buffy’s the Slayer, and Willow’s... useful. She’s like super-smart hacker girl, and she’s even helped Giles with spells a couple of times. I’m the guy who gets kidnapped by sexy preying mantis ladies or stuck with Inca mummy girls who want to suck out my...” Karen suddenly became aware of the look Irma was giving her, and flushed, “life... force... and you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”  
  
Irma shook her head. “I can dig through your memories if you want. But I won’t unless you give me permission. I’m not Emma.”  
  
Karen smiled. “Good to know.”  
  
“I understand, though. You think more is being asked of you than you can give. You think you’re a side-kick, not a hero.”  
  
Karen nodded. “I’m doughnut guy. I bring sugary goodness to the research party. I’m not... what you said.”  
  
“You’re wrong,” Irma said.  
  
Karen blinked. “... I’m wrong. Right.” A beat passed. “How am I wrong?”  
  
Irma smiled. “You’re a hero, Xander. I don’t know what you did or didn’t do in the world you came from, but I do know what you’ve done in this one.”  
  
“You sure you’re not mixing me up with Kara? She’s Power Girl. Last survivor of a dead universe, and all that jazz? She’s Roxy Hart. I’m the Hungarian woman who gets hanged.”  
  
“Didn’t Roxy Hart murder the man she was having an affair with and then set up an elaborate lie about her own pregnancy in order to get off scott free?”  
  
Karen frowned. “... right. Bad metaphor. OK, she’s... she’s Batman, and I’m Alfred at best. She’s...”  
  
“Xander, when that sniper took his shot at Laurie Collins, did you know you could survive the gunshot?”  
  
“Well, no.”  
  
“Did you mean to step in front of the bullet?”  
  
“I didn’t WANT to, but it was either that or let her die, and...”  
  
“Right,” Irma said. “So the one time you were put to the test, a sniper had a bead drawn on your friend. You saw it. You knew you could get in the way. You knew it would probably save Laurie, and you had no way of knowing whether or not your powers were strong enough to allow you to survive, you stepped in the way of the bullet. Like it or not, Xander, you’re a hero.”  
  
Karen stared at Irma for a moment, at a complete loss for words.  
  
“She’s right, you know,” Kara said.  
  
Karen startled slightly, then relaxed, but said nothing.  
  
“I’ve asked Emma NOT to turn you off,” Kara said. “I’ll do it if you refuse, but I want you to do the interview. I’ll help you, but I want you to be the one answering the questions.”  
  
And now Karen stared at Kara, with Irma watching the exchange. “Why would you want that?” she asked, completely incredulous.  
  
“Because you have it within you to be a hero. I believe in you, Xander.”  
  
And for the second time in as many minutes, Karen Starr AKA Xander Harris was at a complete loss for words.  
  
\----------------  
  
And here she was. About to do an interview with CNN. Karen had never been more nervous in her life. OK, that’s a lie: she’d been more nervous when he’d been at the mercy of Preying Mantis Lady, waiting for Buffy to show for the big rescue. But aside from that, she’d never been more nervous in her life.  
  
Who the hell was she to be sitting down to do an interview with Piers Morgan?  
  
Someone Power Girl believed in. Someone Irma believed in, too.  
  
Karen held on to that thought, and it blazed like a torch inside her heart, filling her whole mind up with light.  
  
They’d done her makeup. Did her hair as best they could, and even without the ability to cut it, it was amazing what you could do with hair product. She looked... like Power Girl. Kara was there with her. They’d prepared for this. Emma and Scott had quizzed them on potential responses. Karen had walked into the studio through a veritable horde of reporters who wanted to get commentary from her, from Emma, from Scott.  
  
The studio lights were hot and bright. Piers Morgan was on the set. Emma and Scott were on the set, and they would be answering questions as well, even if the majority would be directed at her.  
  
At her.  
  
The clock counted down. ‘I can do this,’ Karen told herself.  
  
“Damn right, you can,” Kara replied.  
  
3  
2  
1  
  
Showtime.  
  
 ** _End Chapter 10_**


	11. Storm Front

A New World in my View  
by P.H. Wise  
A New X-Men Crossover Fanfic  
  
Chapter 11: Storm Front  
  
Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.

\--------------  
  
Showtime.  
  
"Yesterday,” Piers said, “A young woman shocked the world when she murdered three of the four members of superhero team and reality television stars, 'The New Warriors.'" A clip played on the monitors, showing footage of the New Warriors during the better days of their reality show.  
  
"But this was not the first time this young woman has been in the spotlight, even if only peripherally. It was only a few weeks ago that she and what appears to be her identical twin fought on opposite sides in the event which led up to Reverend William Stryker's 'journal-gate’." A second clip began, this one showing Divine fighting Nimrod fighting Power Girl and the New X-Men. This was followed by still shot shows Power Girl and Divine split screened in close up, showing them to be completely identical except for hair colour.  
  
"Tonight we interview Power Girl, X-Man and apparent twin sister of the alleged murderer."  
  
Piers Morgan turned towards his guest. "So, Karen Starr. It's not your real name, I take it?"  
  
Karen shook her head. “No, it really isn’t.”  
  
"Are you willing to share your real name with us here tonight?"  
  
“Power Girl,” she replied. “Karen Starr is the costume.”  
  
Piers raised an eyebrow. “Your parents called you Power Girl?”  
  
Karen looked down. “That’s... a long story.”  
  
“Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about yourself,” Piers said.  
  
“Well, I never knew my parents. Not really.” Karen was growing uncomfortable. This was too close to the truth. Tony and Jessica Harris were strangers to her. Had always been strangers to her. Her mother a nervous wreck, her father a drunk. Her heart ached at the thought of them. It was funny. She’d been so angry for so long, but now, stuck in Kara’s body, all she felt was sadness.  
  
‘Kara, you want to... field this one?’  
  
“I’m with you, Xander,” Kara whispered into her thoughts. “I can give you the words if you need me to.”  
  
She opened her eyes. “I guess you know by now that I’m not a mutant.” Her lips quirked into a smile. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” In the background, Scott looked embarrassed by that comment. “I was born on the planet Krypton. My father was a scientist. He and his brother discovered that a disaster was coming, and they...” she trailed off. “They couldn’t convince our government. I was just a baby. They saved me, but Krypton tore itself apart.” She fell silent once more. “I spent years in stasis.” It was weirdly easy, talking about Kara’s life as if it were her own. It was funny - she could almost remember the virtual environment she’d grown up in. The virtual parents. Growing up with the knowledge that nobody she interacted with was real. She could almost feel what it had been like. “I grew up in a virtual environment. A simulation of home. I only reached Earth recently.”  
  
Piers nodded. “You seem remarkably well adapted to our culture,” he commented.  
  
Karen nodded. “Earth isn’t exactly unknown in the galaxy. Didn’t you guys get put under quarantine a few years back? … My parents did their research. Included plenty of what I’d need to know in the program.”  
  
“You don’t mention your twin,” Piers commented. “As our viewers have all heard by now, yesterday, your twin murdered three heroes and put a fourth in the hospital. Good people. People kids looked up to. Surely some mention of her should be made? What would you say to those kids now? Or to the families of the dead?”  
  
“She’s not my twin,” Karen said. “She was created on Earth by a man named Maxwell Lord. I don’t know why, but I doubt it involves puppies and kittens.”  
  
Piers looked surprised. “Maxwell Lord?” he asked.  
  
"He's this guy who took my DNA and cloned me without my consent. Then he stuffed a bunch of fake memories in her head and sent her after me. It's this whole thing."  
  
Piers looked shocked. “I see,” he managed. “Considering the power she’s displayed, if your world was advanced enough to send you here, is there... some sort of technology from your world that could contain her?”  
  
Karen immediately thought of kryptonite. “There’s this thing that’s like the kryptonite to her Superman...” she trailed off a moment, realizing exactly what she’d just said, “And it is shaped, sir, like itself,” she said, her embarrassment clear in her tone. “Can we edit that part out? … Right. There’s this substance that would handle her, but it doesn’t exist on this planet.”  
  
Piers seemed amused, but he remained professional. “I see. We’re going to ask a few questions of your teachers at the Xavier Academy in a moment, but for now, I’ve got a few more questions for you, Ms. Starr. First, what has it been like for you as a non-mutant to study at the school for mutants, the grounds of which now house the largest single concentration of mutants in the world?”  
  
“It’d be better if we didn’t have that whole ‘paranoia brigade’ sitting on our front porch.”  
  
“You’re referring to the forces deployed by the Office of National Emergency?”  
  
Karen nodded. “Nothing like an armed military presence to add that special touch of awkward to your high school experience.”  
  
“Then you disagree with the policy of the Office of National Emergency?” Piers asked.  
  
Karen gave him a look. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that rounding up a minority all in one place and putting armed guards out front is a thing which rarely leads to greater tolerance and understanding.” She frowned. “What’s your issue with mutants, anyways? You’ve got a world full of people with superpowers. Super heroes have been part of your society since, what, World War 2? And nobody’s got a problem with the Avengers, nobody’s out protesting against the Fantastic Four as being ‘a danger to our kids,’ and nobody who doesn’t work for the Daily Bugle has a problem with Spider-Man. So I gotta wonder, what’s going on here?”  
  
Piers didn’t have an answer.  
  
Karen pressed on, “I mean, if I was genetically compatible with humanity, at that point in my life, and having kids? I'd be thrilled to have a mutant son or daughter. My kid could be the next superhero… grow up and be someone important. Instead, everyone treats them like they're diseased. And now they’re all being shipped off to a little school with armed guards so they don't have to be seen or heard from except for when it's convenient. Sounds like a recipe for some really powerful, really bitter kids that are going to be looking forward to paying back that 'kindness' someday. Do you want more Magnetos or more Cyclopses? Or is that Cyclopsii?"  
  
“Are you suggesting that the current batch of students consists of potential Magnetos?” Piers asked.  
  
“Are you suggesting that you can justify oppression by the fact that people resent being oppressed?” Karen asked right back. “We can’t stop now, we’ve already gone too far, we might as well keep right on doing it? Something like that?”  
  
“Of course not.” Piers shook his head. “Just one more question for you, Ms. Starr.”  
  
“I’m all ears,” Karen said.  
  
“Do you have a message for the people of Earth?”  
  
Karen gave Piers a dubious look. “A message?”  
  
“Is there anything you’d like to tell us? Some wisdom from your culture? A quote from one of your famous philosophers, perhaps?”  
  
“Er...” Karen tried to think of something. Wracked her brain for something better than the equivalent of ‘have a nice summer.’ ‘We find, Buffy slays, we party?’ Maybe not. She could feel the heat of the lights. Sweat dripped down the inside of her shirt. The moment stretched out. Suddenly, the whole world seemed to move in slow motion, and as she had when the assassin had fired upon Laurie, in the space between heartbeats, she had time to think.  
  
… and then she knew. And she felt a deep, awful sadness. “You will travel far, my little one,” she said, “but we will never leave you. Even in the face of our death. The richness of our lives shall be yours. All that I have, all that I’ve learned, everything I feel... all this, and more, I bequeath you, my daughter. You will carry us inside you all the days of your life. You will make my strength your own, and see my life through your eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. The daughter becomes the mother. The mother becomes the daughter. This is all I can send you.”  
  
“What was that?”  
  
Karen looked up, and her voice cracked with not unfeigned emotion: she could REMEMBER these things, the variant spoken to Kara of the same words which Jor-El had spoken over Kal, and it shook her to the core. “The last words my mother ever spoke to me.”  
  
\--------------  
  
 _Greenwich, Connecticut_  
  
“Why are you running away?” Divine asked, staring at the fleeing form of Coldheart in civilian garb. The others were gone. Nitro. Speedfreek. Cobalt Man. They’d all run away. She’d followed. It was easy enough to track them. Well, to track the ones that weren’t Nitro. He was being... difficult. But every time she showed herself to her friends, they’d fled her presence. Run away. Just like Coldheart was doing now.  
  
The sun was warm but not uncomfortable. Divine stood on the sidewalk that ran along side a long plank-board fence. Power lines buzzed overhead, going from pole to pole. A narrow strip of grass was between the sidewalk and the busy street. Trees stood on the other side of the fence. The far side of the street was more open. More like a park. Trees and grass and paths and open sky.  
  
Her friend was running away.  
  
All at once, she was in front of Coldheart, and the woman stopped short. Divine could hear her heartbeat. See her heartbeat. See the blood surging through her veins. See the air filling her lungs with each breath. “I fought for you,” she said. “I defended you when they came for you. Why... why did you all run away?”  
  
Coldheart turned her back. Divine shot around her to face her once again.  
  
“You killed a superhero team,” Coldheart replied at last. “The law is going to come down, and it’s going to come down hard. No offense, girl, but at your side is a hell of a dangerous place to be. I can’t be seen with you, and I especially can’t be seen TALKING to you, got it?”  
  
Divine stared. “But...”  
  
Frustration was evident in Coldheart’s expression, and she finally snapped. “God,” she said, “What are you, nine? What part of ‘go to ground and wait for the heat to die down’ do you not understand?”  
  
“... but we’re friends... aren’t we?”  
  
Coldheart grit her teeth. “Yes, we’re friends. Sometimes, friends have to avoid each other for their own safety, understand?”  
  
“No. … yes. I guess.” Divine felt her heart sink. This time, when Coldheart walked away, she didn’t follow.  
  
Yesterday. Had it only been yesterday? She’d defended these people. No sign of the man who’d had her come to the safe house. She’d seen her own image being broadcast via radio-waves, along with people calling her a monster, calling her actions unprecedented, savage, debased. She’d only been defending her friends, hadn’t she?  
  
She wished that Max were here.  
  
\--------------  
  
“Well done, Karen,” Scott said, and meant it. They hadn’t said a word in the studio. Hadn’t said anything on the walk back to the car. Only now, in the car, on the way back to the school, did either of them speak.  
  
Kara voiced her agreement a moment later. “You did good, Xander,” she said.  
  
“It was nothing,” Karen replied, blushing from the compliment.  
  
“You told the truth on national television,” Scott went on. “That’s not a thing that happens very often.”  
  
“Pundits are already twisting your words,” Emma said. “They’re trying to portray you as a sanctimonious brat who has no right to judge them. Perhaps one who has been ‘dangerously influenced by powerful mutants’.”  
  
Karen felt a stab of anger. “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said.  
  
“I know,” Emma said. “And so will many of those who watch.”  
  
“But not all of them. Maybe not even most of them.”  
  
Scott glanced Karen’s way, smiling faintly, “Welcome to our lives,” he said.  
  
“You can’t control how other people are going to act,” Kara said, “But you can control how you'll respond. You can choose to be the better person. Or you can choose to respond in kind.”  
  
Scott nodded in agreement.  
  
“So,” Emma said, raising an eyebrow, “You don’t think that mutants should aspire to be like me, Miss Starr?”  
  
Karen felt a moment of panic. “Urk...”  
  
Emma’s expression darkened.  
  
“I... uh, with all due respect, I don’t think the world could handle two of you, Miss Frost,” Karen managed.  
  
Scott grinned, and Emma held her displeased expression a moment longer before relaxing into an amused smile.  
  
Karen watched in silence for half an hour after that as the car slowly made its way from New York city back towards the Xavier mansion. Traffic wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great either. The going was slow, but not as slow as it might have been. Eventually, she shook her head. ‘Emma?’ she thought.  
  
Emma glanced her way.  
  
‘Back in the studio, I...’  
  
 _*You experienced fragments of Kara’s memories,* Emma’s mental voice replied._  
  
‘Yeah.’  
  
Kara looked down.  
  
 _*There was a reason why Kara and I decided not to broach the subject of copying the ability to control your powers from one mind to another.*_  
  
‘... so this is going to happen again?’  
  
 _*Probably. Particularly with memories that center around her learning how to control her powers. And there may be... bleed-over between those and your own memories. You’ve got fragments of Kara’s memories inside you. Your mind will incorporate them into your own, eventually. Some through confabulation of new memories to resolve the dissonance. Some by writing over existing memories that are similar in nature.*_  
  
‘Can’t you reverse it? Undo the damage somehow?’  
  
 _*The mind is a delicate thing. I can erase the memories, but I can’t restore whatever it is they’ve overwritten. The process might damage you._  
  
Karen shivered. ‘... If I don’t do anything, will I still be me?’  
  
 _*Do you want to be?*_  
  
Karen didn’t have an answer for that at first. But Kara believed in her. And Irma believed in her. Resolution grew within her heart. ‘Yeah,’ she thought, ‘I do.’  
  
Emma smiled.  
  
The car drove on.  
  
\----------------  
  
North Salem was beginning to recover. The riots were ended now, driven back by the forces of the Office of National Emergency, and the streets had been clear of protesters for days now. It was... better. Karen actually saw a few ordinary pedestrians as the car approached the mansion. The presence of an armed military force put a damper on any sense of homecoming she might have had, of course, but even so, she felt better once the car had pulled into the driveway. Better still after opening the door and spending a few moments standing in the moonlight. Emma and Scott went on ahead of her, soon disappearing into the mansion. The stars were bright, the moon brighter still, and she couldn’t help but think of...  
  
“So, Irma, huh?” Kara asked.  
  
Karen stumbled over the first step leading up to the mansion. ‘What about her?’ she thought.  
  
“You’re not really going to deny it to the girl whose head-space you’re sharing, are you?”  
  
Karen sighed. ‘... It doesn’t matter. I’m a girl. She’s a girl. There’s no way she’s a lesbian. I’m not that lucky.’  
  
“It doesn’t actually work that way,” Kara replied. “Human sexuality, I mean. It’s a spectrum, not two binary categories.”  
  
Karen was entirely unconvinced.  
  
“OK,” Kara said, “Think of it this way: she’s a telepath. She probably knew before you did. If you haven’t scared her off already, you probably aren’t going to.”  
  
Karen frowned, and took a moment to brush her increasingly shaggy blonde hair out of her eyes: she really needed to find a way to get a haircut at some point. ‘Was I that obvious?’ she wondered. ‘I hope I wasn’t that obvious.’  
  
“My body, remember? Anything you feel, I feel. It’s kind of annoying, actually. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep track of which emotions are mine and which are yours when I’m the one who’s feeling them either way?”  
  
Karen giggled. ‘So not only am I hijacking your body, I’m also making you feel your first lesbian crush?’  
  
Kara blushed, and Karen’s eyes widened in response. “OK, spill, Kara,” Karen said aloud. A pair of O*N*E soldiers patrolling the school grounds glanced her way, and Karen switched back to mental communication. ‘Was it... it can’t have been Atlee? Isn’t she jailbait?’  
  
Kara’s blush deepened. “She’s eighteen,” she said. “Almost nineteen. And I’m twenty five.”  
  
‘Actually,’ Karen mentally replied, ‘Right now? You’re seventeen.’  
  
“And she’s like a sister to me...” Kara protested.  
  
Karen grinned. ‘Oh, sure. Like a sister. Except for the whole wanting to jump her bones thing.’ She could almost see it now: Power Girl, Atlee, kissing, fondling, clothes coming off, skin against skin, breasts pressing against...  
  
“Hey, cut that out! I can feel that too, you know.”  
  
Karen gave Kara a look. ‘I notice you’re not actually denying anything.’  
  
Kara would have ground her teeth had she been able to.  
  
‘It’s funny, I never would have figured the writers would make the short haired, ripped, busty superheroine into a lesbian. Seems kind of like pandering. Not that I’m complaining.’  
  
“Categories,” Kara muttered. And then, “There aren’t actually a group of writers dictating my life, Karen.”  
  
Laughing, Karen walked into the mansion, and the door shut behind her.  
  
\----------------  
  
Morning. The second day after Stamford. The Watchtower glittered in the morning sun like a great, black spider perched atop Stark Tower. From this place, The Sentry, Golden Guardian of Good, departed. To this place he returned. The man with the power of a million exploding suns stood atop the tower, listening to the world. He could hear... everything. A butterfly’s heartbeat in Africa. The sound of a swarm of bees building its hive in an old Volkswagen’s engine block in the parking lot at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. The battle cries of a band of pirates assaulting a cruise ship just west of the Philippines.  
  
“Twenty three seconds,” CLOC - the AI who governed the Watchtower - announced.   
  
He opened his eyes. Something about today seemed different. He could feel... a storm approaching. It had been gathering for some time. He was familiar with Complexity. The patterns in the randomness and chaos of complex systems. The butterfly effect was its most simplistic expression: a butterfly flaps its wings in China, and in Central Park there is rain instead of sunshine. This... was something more. Something vast. The very air felt oppressive. Claustrophobic. The whole Earth felt stuffy and close.  
  
“Thirteen seconds,” CLOC announced.  
  
He was already gone by the time the last syllable reached the place where he had been standing only moments before.  
  
Seven seconds later, the battlecries of the pirates off the coast of the Philippines turned to screams of terror as The Sentry blasted them into their component atoms. He felt no remorse for his actions. He might have, once. But he had learned not to be too good, too compassionate. The Void - his equal, his opposite, his other half - was gone, cast into the sun and destroyed, but it would be back. And when it returned, it would respond in kind for every good thing he had done in its absence. An act of depraved evil for every good. A death for every life saved. So he fought fire with fire. Overcame violence through greater violence. Perhaps the situation called for that response. But he no longer argued it with himself. There were times when he could not bring himself to get out of bed for fear of what the Void would do to balance the scales when it returned. But not today.  
  
Six seconds later, he had bypassed a pregnant woman trapped in a burning car on the streets of Cairo in order to save a school bus full of screaming children in the process of plummeting into the ocean in southern Spain. Prioritize. Reassess. His were the responsibilities of a god, and he bore the weight of it easily, as one long accustomed to such a burden.  
  
“Suicide bomber on the streets of Bagdad,” CLOC announced, and The Sentry’s super-senses focused in upon the man. “Twelve seconds until detonation.”  
  
He vanished from Spain, arriving just in time to kill the man in Bagdad before he could detonate, and then gone again just as quickly.  
  
A storm was coming. The Sentry had work to do.  
  
\----------------  
  
Morning. Dappled sunlight filtered down through the leaves of the trees to where Divine walked along the banks of the Mianus River. Here, for two and a half miles along the river, was an escape from the harsh reality of this new world. An escape from a world in which she … lacked a purpose. It was beautiful. Oh, she could wipe it all out in the space of a second if she wanted, but listening to the sound of the river, and the wind in the trees, and feeling the dappled sunlight on her skin, watching the shadows shift all around in time to the breeze, she didn’t want to. She felt... at peace.  
  
A tiny furry creature skittered down the tree, and she looked up at it, curious. What were those called again? Grey fur. White fur on the stomach. Long bushy tail. Big black eyes. Sort of like a rat, but not quite.  
  
Divine let her eyes drift shut.  
  
A tiny creature jumped onto her stomach. She opened her eyes. The furry thing The... squirrel. Right. These were called squirrels. It sat on her stomach now, looking at her interestedly.  
  
“Hello, little thing,” Divine said, reaching out to pet it.  
  
It bit her finger. It didn’t pierce the skin, but it surprised her. She batted the creature away, and it went flying out into the river.  
  
A second squirrel - or was it the same one? - came out from behind the tree.  
  
Divine sat up.  
  
A third squirrel. A fourth. A fifth. A sixth. Then a dozen. Then two dozen. Then five dozen. Some brown, some grey.  
  
“Okay,” she said, “What gives?”  
  
Every single one of them stared directly at her, large black eyes fixed upon her form. She began to grow uncomfortable. The sunlight didn’t feel quite so warm anymore. “I don’t have to take this from you!” she yelled, letting loose with a blast of heat vision that wiped out half of the swarm.  
  
Twice as many squirrels popped out of the bushes to take their place.  
  
They charged her. Hundreds of squirrels. Thousands. An all-consuming, suffocating mass of wriggling, awful, vicious, biting things. She tried to fly, but their weight bore her down. They were piercing her skin now, and she screamed in agony. She felt like she’d been exposed to kryptonite and then doused in molten rock. Agony upon agony upon agony, her screams rising ever higher, more and more squirrels, more and more of the little demons, and then the great vast bulk of them seemed to take on a humanoid shape. A woman with a squirrel’s tail, brown hair, and a squirrel’s buck teeth.  
  
“YOU KILLED HIM!” the woman screamed, her cry shaking the Earth itself, knocking down trees, even. The riverbed cracked open and a great fountain of squirrels billowed up from underneath it to rise up into the air and blot out the sun. “YOU KILLED SPEEDBALL! NOW I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!”  
  
The squirrels descended.  
  
Divine woke up with a scream rising in the back of her throat that she only barely repressed. She was still lying in the shade of the tree. Still at the riverbank. Oh God. She must have fallen asleep. She must have...  
  
She rose to her feet, shivering despite the warmth of the day.  
  
A squirrel looked down at her from the branch of the tree she’d been sleeping under. A quick blast of heat vision turned it to ash.  
  
“Hate squirrels,” she muttered.  
  
\----------------  
  
Morning. Morning, and the day was bright and glorious. Reverend William Stryker had been allowed to post bail, and it felt... good. Like the renewal of God’s promise. His arm was still a stump, the legacy of his confrontation with the spawn of Satan, but he had been allowed to change clothes at last. To dress himself as befit his station as a man of the cloth. His suit was immaculate. His face clean shaven. His eyes filled with the conviction of one whose cause was just. The press were waiting for him at the entrance to the jail, and he smiled as the cameras began to flash.  
  
“Reverend Stryker, do you have any comment to make regarding the charges against you?”   
“Reverend, is it true? Did you really plot the assassination of mutant children?”   
“Reverend, do you have a statement to make?”  
  
“At this time,” he announced, and all fell silent, “I am prepared only to say that I am, and have ever been, God’s servant. His will, not mine, be done. Thank you.”  
  
He continued down the steps to where the car waited for him. Everyone seemed to speak at once, but he paid them no more mind than an elephant would pay a speck of dust. The man waiting at his car opened the door for him, and closed it behind him after he’d gotten into the back seat.  
  
It was good. Leather seats. Drinks - non-alchoholic, of course. Blessed air conditioning. And all the amenities of home.  
  
“I’d ask what you were doing in my car,” Stryker said, “But I suppose you were about to get to that.” The car pulled away from the curb. Merged into city traffic.  
  
The business-suit clad man seated across from him nodded. “I come bearing a message,” he said. “A message from the Lord Most High.”  
  
Stryker raised an eyebrow. “Plenty of people think they hear the Lord. Most of them are crazy. I am not, but most are. Why should I believe you?”  
  
The man picked up the oversized case which had lay next to his feet. He opened it, and turned it, revealing what lay within: the gauntlet. The severed arm of Nimrod. Stryker’s own severed arm was no longer within, but he recognized the device when he saw it. And it was... restored. No longer damaged the way it had been when William had first found it.  
  
William Stryker’s eyes widened. “How? How did you get this?”  
  
The man smiled. “The Lord works in mysterious ways. I have a task for you. A task which will bring about the final fall of mutantkind. Are amenable to the Lord’s will?”  
  
“I am His humble servant,” Stryker replied.  
  
\----------------  
  
Morning. Morning, and for the first time since she’d arrived here, Karen allowed herself to hope that maybe, just maybe, she might be able to go home soon. “It’ll be ready tomorrow?” she asked for the fifth time.  
  
Stephen Strange smiled patiently. “Tomorrow. The preparations for the ritual will take some time, but tomorrow, at noon, I believe I can open a portal to the place where your true body resides. I was unable to determine much about the location, save that it is still alive and intact, and the environment on the other side is survivable. Beyond that, I can not say.”  
  
“How will I, er, get back into it?” Karen asked.  
  
Stephen produced a strange, clockwork device which would rest on the palm of the hand, with rings into which a thumb, index, and ring finger could be pressed. “This is... an artifact. It is very old, very valuable. It allows for the transfer, mind and soul, between one body and another.”  
  
“Won’t that stick Kara back in my old body?” Karen asked.  
  
“I have modified its function extensively. It will allow for a one way transfer: you to your old body. To activate it, press your hand into the hand of your old body.” He looked Karen in the eye. “Do not put it on until you are ready to return to your original self. The magic is indiscriminate, and quite easy to trigger accidentally. All that is required is palm to palm contact.”  
  
Karen swallowed. “... Right. Ending up in the wrong body is bad.”  
  
Stephen nodded. “Indeed.”  
  
“Doctor Strange, I don’t think I’ve had a chance to thank you for... everything.”  
  
Stephen smiled. “You are quite welcome. Now, if I’m not mistaken, you were to be returned before your morning classes began.”  
  
“Yeah. Those.” Karen rose to her feet. To be honest, the last thing she cared about right now was classes. She wasn’t going to have these powers for much longer, and the coursework she’d need to learn at Sunnydale High was way less advanced than what they’d had her studying here. All she really needed to do was figure out what she was going to tell the friends she’d made in this world.  
...  
Balls.  
  
\----------------  
  
Funny how life is. How the little things can affect the big things, and vice versa. Maria Hill had been pushing for the superhuman registration act for some time now. Stark had been fighting it. Captain America didn’t like the idea, either. Maria saw its necessity. Then along came Stamford. If those kids in the New Warriors had been properly trained and supported, none of this would have happened. But since it had, she and her people had gone in and they’d pushed hard, and one day later, the superhero registration act was passed. The President had vetoed it. They’d expected that. Today, two days after Stamford, congress had overridden the presidential veto. It was law, due to take effect midnight tonight. She already had her capebuster units trained. She was on her way to have a little chat with Captain America about it. Or would have been, if things had gone differently.  
  
No sooner had the vote gone through than the ACLU had filed suit in partnership with the Fantastic Four to challenge the law in court. And then that damned activist, liberal judge had gone and ordered a stay on enforcement. Of all the possible outcomes, this one was the one she hadn’t planned for. The court was due to hear the case sometime in March. In MARCH. It was September, and they weren’t even going to hear the case until fucking March. Legal limbo.  
  
Maria found herself grinding her teeth. So it was that when an anonymous tip came through claiming that Divine had been sighted in Greenwich, she hadn’t particularly felt like sharing the information with the Avengers. “Deploy the capebusters,” she ordered. “We’re going to take this bitch down, and we’re going to take her down hard.”  
  
It was a mistake. One she never should have made. She saw that later. When it was too late.  
  
They knew what they were going into. Or they thought they did. Maria had seen to it that the briefing on the powers and abilities of Kryptonians was made available to the men planning the strike. Agents were on the ground in search of the target. When they gave the signal, the strike teams would move in. Supposedly, Divine had a high degree of invulnerability. Tranq darts tipped with adamantium were issued. Flight packs. Plasma rifles. Heat-resistant armor. Two humvees equipped with the Active Denial System. Multiple snipers equipped with M107 .50 caliber long range sniper rifles packing two adamantium slugs a piece plus more conventional depleted uranium ammunition. Everything was ready.  
  
In the helicarrier’s CIC, a voice announced that the target had been sighted on the grounds of a state park north of Greenwich. In Stamford, no less, on the opposite side of town from where she’d killed the New Warriors, but in the same fucking town.  
  
She gave the order.  
  
‘Incoming transmission,’ the wall display read. A moment later, Tony Stark’s face appeared on the screen. “Maria, what are you doing?”  
  
“My job,” she replied.  
  
“You’ll never bring down a fully powered Kryptonian, Maria. Did you read the briefing I sent over?”  
  
“I read it. We’ve taken adequate precautions.”  
  
“Damnit, don’t DO this. I’m assembling the Avengers. We’ll be on our way as soon as they’re all here, but you need either psychic or magical support for this...”  
  
“We don’t need the help of superpowered beings to do our jobs,” Maria said. “We’ve got the tools, we’ve got the technology, and we’ve got the manpower. When this is over, you’ll be congratulating me.” Before he had a chance to reply, Maria terminated the connection.  
  
The banks of the Mianus River became a living hell.  
  
\----------------  
  
Sergeant James Johnson led his squad in from the air, making full use of the S.H.I.E.L.D. issued flight packs. The target had been sighted below, her location pinged on everyone’s HUD. Divine was below, walking along the banks of the Mianus. Wading in it. Up to her ankles.  
  
The ‘go’ order came through.  
  
“Move into engagement range,” he ordered, “Fire as soon as you have a shot.” They were the first squad in, their guns equipped with adamantium tipped tranquilizer needles, each loaded with a 20mg dose of atropine. The six-man squad descended, opening fire before they even reached the ground.  
  
The target reacted too quickly. Far too quickly. No one had that kind of reaction time. Six tranquilizer rounds went straight and true, but she was already out of the way. They thudded into the dirt. In the time it took for his eyes to widen, one of Sergeant Johnson’s men was dead - thrown headfirst into a tree and his body splattered over a three meter radius surrounding it.  
  
Too slow. Too damned slow. “Take... her... down...” the words seemed to take an eternity to form, a second eternity to say. A wave of incredible heat accompanied twin beams of coherent energy emitted from her eyes, and three more of his men died, their bodies reduced to charred skeletons in an instant.  
  
She was in front of him. He brought his gun around. Too slow. She put her fist through Corporal Jensen’s face. It came out the back of his skull, heralded by a spray of brains and blood.  
  
James Johnson, his gun leveled at the woman, pulled the trigger.  
  
In the time it took for the release of compressed gas to propel the dart out the front of his rifle, she was already behind him. He felt something grab him by both arms, and then agony, and then darkness.  
  
\----------------  
  
“First team is down! Attack! All forces, attack!”  
  
The world became a storm of bullets and fire. Helicopters made strafing runs, unleashing their rocket pods on the girl as explosion after explosion lit up the area where she had stood a second earlier. An adamantium round fired from a 50 caliber sniper rifle grazed her shoulder, and THAT actually hurt, leaving a gash half an inch deep.  
  
Divine took to the air, and a humvee was melted to slag after six seconds of focus from her heat vision. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents followed her up, swarming through the air like angry bees, plasma rifles discharging again and again into the place she had just been. Some found their mark to negligible effect.  
  
Divine clapped her hands together, and the ensuing sonic boom knocked six agents unconscious in midair. Their landings were neither safe nor pleasant.  
  
“Sir, the battle’s gone pear-shaped. Recommend immediate withdrawal!”  
  
The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in charge on the ground had not time to voice his order before the wreckage of a helicopter crashed down on top of him.  
  
The engagement lasted thirty seconds from start to finish. Six attack helicopters, two humvees, two hundred men, destroyed.  
  
Corporal Frank Riley, the two hundred and first man and army ranger, stood before Divine, alone. Her eyes fixed on his, and he met her gaze, a soldier to the end, proud and unafraid. He knew that he couldn’t hope to harm her. Knew he was going to die. Knew this was the end. He could hear the sound of an approaching plane. Reinforcements, perhaps. It wouldn't matter. They had made a mistake. They were all going to die.  
  
She walked towards him almost lazily, both arms drenched in gore, the rest of her blood-splattered, looking like nothing so much as the promise of doom. She flashed forward.  
  
The Sentry was there.  
  
Divine had time to look surprised. He was as fast as she was. And he was strong. And he had just caught her arm in a grip as immovable as a kryptonite mountain. She strained against him, and he against her, and each shook from the effort, but he proved the stronger. “No more,” he said. “No more will fall to you this day.”  
  
Others descended from the plane. From the Avengers’ quinjet. Iron Man. Spider-Man. Captain America. Spider-Woman. Wolverine.  
  
The Sentry seized her other arm and lifted off into the sky, taking her with him. They ascended into orbit, fighting every step of the way. And then he threw her into the sun. Faster than light. It took ten seconds to cross the intervening space. She plunged into the star and vanished without a trace.   
  
The Sentry descended, landed in the park once more. “She won’t be bothering us again,” he said.  
  
“What did you do to her?” Captain America asked, his expression grim.  
  
“I sent her on an all expense paid vacation to the photosphere,” Sentry replied.  
  
Spider-Man stared. "You threw her… into the sun."  
  
The Sentry smirked, trying and failing not to look smug. "Yes."  
  
Wolverine sheathed his claws, looking annoyed. He often looked annoyed when their fights involved the Sentry.  
  
"She's solar-powered," Spider-Man said.  
  
"So?"  
  
‘Fifteen seconds, Sentry,’ CLOC said.  
  
"Solar,” Spider-Man said, “As in the sun."  
  
Sentry’s smirk faded as he thought about it. "There's a difference between getting your power from the sun and being able to survive being thrown INTO the sun," he said. He looked around. “I’ve got something to take care of in Cairo. You can handle it from here.” He lifted into the air.  
  
Spider-Man reacted, leaping into the air and swinging out of the way, responding to a danger only he could sense.  
  
And then a black and pink blur trailing a plume of plasma that stretched from the upper atmosphere all the way down to the surface of the earth slammed into The Sentry from above. There was an horrific, sickening crack that was almost lost beneath the accompanying sonic boom. Dirt and grass and trees and sections of concrete pathways went flying.  
  
‘Sentry?’ CLOC asked. ‘Sentry, can you hear me? Your vital signs have spiked dangerously. Sentry, respond! Three seconds. Two. One. Reassessing. Reprioritizing.’  
  
The Sentry lay at the bottom of a crater fifty meters across, his left arm twisted at an unnatural angle, shards of bone visibly sticking up through broken flesh, staring mutely at his mangled limb. Iron Man still hovered over the scene. Spider-Man had gotten clear. Captain America and Spider-Woman lay unconscious halfway up the side of the crater, each of them half-buried in dirt. Wolverine was better off - he’d been further away, and had only been knocked prone by the impact, and was even now getting back on his feet and rubbing his head.  
  
Divine floated overhead like an angry goddess. Like an angry naked goddess, her clothing burned away by her trip to the sun, but otherwise completely unharmed. “And then there were three,” she said.  
  
Spider-Man swallowed audibly.  
  
Sentry rose back to his feet. “I’m... not... done yet,” he ground out, and then unleashed a cataclysmic blast of yellow light from his uninjured hand, unleashing the power of a million exploding suns in its purest, most raw form. For a moment, Spider-Man thought he could see Divine’s form in the flare. Then it was gone.  
  
The light faded.  
  
Divine floated exactly where she had before, except now her eyes seemed to shine with golden light. “Oh my God,” she said, and giggled. “Do that again. I’ve NEVER felt so... I feel like I could do ANYTHING!”  
  
Sentry clenched his fist.  
  
Battle was joined.  
  
The two struck each other with blows that sent shockwaves through the surrounding area, and for a few seconds, they seemed evenly matched. And then Divine gained the upper hand, and the battle became less of a battle and more of a curbstomp.  
  
“I can't help but notice that she's thrashing him now," Spider-Man said. Divine landed a particularly savage blow, kicking Sentry in the balls at near full super-charged strength, and Spider-Man found himself cringing in sympathetic reaction. “... wow, that one actually hurt to watch."  
  
Iron Man stared.  
  
"What's plan B?" Spider-Man asked.  
  
"Deploy our psychic resources and overwhelm her mind," Iron Man replied.  
  
"The psychic resources we’re borrowing from Xavier’s?” Spider-Man asked. “The psychic resources that are still five minutes out?"  
  
"Yes, those ones."  
  
Spider-Man paused a moment. "... What's plan C?"  
  
Sentry’s body hit the ground with an earthshaking roar. For a moment it seemed he would rise to continue the fight... but then he collapsed, and didn’t get back up.  
  
Divine turned her attention to the remaining Avengers. “Now, where where we?”  
  
“Tony?” Spider-Man asked, feeling a little panicked. “Plan C?”  
  
“Don’t die,” Tony replied. Divine shot towards him, and he managed to evade her blow by luck more than anything else, firing off his repulsors into her back as she zoomed overhead. Supercharged as she was by Sentry’s attempts to destroy her, she didn’t particularly notice.  
  
Wolverine went next, charging, leaping, roaring with animalistic fury. She let him get in a few swipes, an amused expression on her face, confident that there was nothing he could do that could hurt her. … and then he stabbed her in the chest with two sets of adamantium claws, and the blades come out her back with a spray of blood, and her eyes went wide.  
  
“Oh...” Divine said.  
  
Wolverine grinned savagely, twisting his claws. “Not so tough now, are ya?”  
  
She pushed him away, and his claws pulled free of her body with the sickening wet sound of tearing flesh. But even as her life’s blood flowed out through the holes he’d made, the holes healed before their eyes, sealing shut in a matter of seconds. “... nice... try,” she said, and then rose back to her full height. “But it will take more than that to kill me.” But it was clear that it had taken something out of her to regenerate from that. Her eyes weren't glowing any longer.  
  
Iron Man bombarded her from above with blasts from his armor. Wolverine charged again, this time to meet a blast of full strength heat vision which burned off hair, skin and muscle alike and cooked his brain inside his skull. He fell to the ground, momentarily dead. Iron Man weaved to avoid a second blast, but this was a calculated shot: he dodged directly into the path of her physical attack, seized him by the leg, and slammed him into the ground three times. The armor had the means to dampen kinetic impact to ensure that it didn’t affect Tony, but this was more than it had been designed to handle.  
  
He passed out on the second hit.  
  
Divine turned to face Spider-Man. “And then there was one,” she said.   
  
His spider-sense screamed a warning, and even so, he barely avoided her charge, leaping up and over. Spider-Man’s mind raced. ‘Don’t die,’ Tony had said. ‘Don’t die.’ He was superhuman, but she was on another level all together. He needed to... not die. The X-Men were on their way. He needed to... not get distracted by the unbelievably gorgeous naked girl who was trying to murder him.  
  
Spider-sense. He twisted in mid-air, shot a line of webbing to latch onto the side of the crater Divine had made when she’d plowed into Sentry from above, and yanked hard to alter his trajectory just in time to avoid taking a blast of her heat vision full on. One minute. He needed to last one minute. He could do this.   
  
Spider-Sense. He ducked underneath her haymaker blow. he began. Spider-Sense, and he sprang backwards into the air in a breathtaking acrobatic leap, doing a full flip even as he shot two streams of web-fluid, one at her eyes, the second at a tree beyond the zone of destruction. She evaded the the shot at her eyes, but it bought him another second. Spider-sense. He pivoted in mid-air to evade her fist. He landed on the tree feet first. Spider-Sense, and he grabbed her arm in mid-punch, working with her momentum and not against it, redirecting her. Divine plowed into the ground. He took the opportunity to fire off two quick blasts of web-fluid onto her prone form in the hopes of delaying her for another few seconds.   
  
‘Not too shabby,’ he congratulated himself.  
  
She rose to her feet, strands of webbing ripping and tearing free as she did so.   
  
"OK," Spider-Man said, "Now turn around so I can get your backside."  
  
Divine gave him a look. The sort of look that asked, 'the hell you say?'  
  
"What? We're trying to keep this family friendly."   
  
"OK," Divine conceded, "So I'm a little bigger than average." she gestured to her ample bust with both hands, "Do you really have to make a big deal of it when I'm squashing you like the bug that you are?"  
  
Spider-sense. He sprang off the tree just in time to not get cooked alive by another blast of heat-vision. "Spiders are arachnids, actually," he said helpfully.  
  
And then he wasn’t quick enough. She clipped him with a blow, cutting off his words, and Spider-Man went flying through the trunk of a fully grown tree and into the trunk of a second, which cracked under the impact. And he knew pain.  
  
She stalked towards him, taking her time, savoring the experience.   
  
A scream of rage came from her left. Wolverine was on his feet, and charging. She side-stepped his swipes and kicked him in the chest. He went flying, plowing through tree after tree after tree until he finally tumbled to a stop out of Spider-Man’s line of sight.  
  
“You’re slippery, and your friend is hard to kill, but I think this is over, now.”  
  
“You’re not wrong,” came an unexpected voice: the voice of Emma Frost.   
  
Spider-Man looked up, and Divine whirled to face the new threat. The Kryptonian got as far as looking into Emma's glowing eyes before her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed, hitting the ground with a disproportionately loud thump.  
  
The X-Men had arrived.  
  
“Glad you could... make it...” Spider-Man wheezed.  
  
“You know us,” Cyclops replied, “We never like to miss a party.”  
  
Spider-Man’s vision was beginning to blur. He tried to stand, but a wave of dizziness sent him to his knees.  
  
Oh, right. He was bleeding. And hurting. And probably had a concussion. And might have broken a few bones. And...  
  
The world went dim.  
  
\----------------  
  
The Sentry came back to awareness in a hospital bed, and hurting everywhere. This was a first. What had...? The events at the park came rushing back. Shame overwhelmed him. Worse than the physical pain. Worse than the pain in his arm.  
  
“Bob?” His wife’s voice. “Bob, are you ok? I was so scared...!”  
  
He didn’t look at her. Couldn’t look at her.  
  
“He needs time to recover.” Tony. Tony Stark was here.  
  
“I’ve never seem him so...” There was pity in her tone, and his shame burned all the brighter.  
  
He tried to sit up. “I... she... HURT me.”  
  
And for the first time since he’d thrown the creature into the sun, he heard an echo, a voice like the Void’s in his thoughts but... different. “Yes,” it said, its laughter loud and mocking, “Isn’t it precious?”  
  
He clenched his eyes shut.  
  
“Bob, I’m here,” his wife - Lindy - said. “I’m here for you. You just rest now. You have to get better.”  
  
He tried to sit up, tried to pull out the IV with its adamantium needle feeding nutrients into his arm. Tried to... he fumbled at it for a few moments. “I have to... I have to stop her,” he said. I’m the only one powerful enough to...”  
  
“It’s under control, Sentry,” Tony said. “The X-Men took care of it.”  
  
He met Tony’s gaze. “I have to... she’s... nobody’s ever... I’m the only one who can...”  
  
“No, you aren’t. She’s a Kryptonian, Sentry. Against her, you’re a liability.”  
  
Sentry sat up in shock, ignoring the pain that roared through his body at the movement. “WHAT?!”  
  
“You’ve got the power of a million exploding suns,” Tony said, trying to be as gentle as he could, “She draws power from the sun. Do the math.”  
  
The Sentry clenched his one still functional fist. “Impossible...” he muttered.  
  
Tony sighed. “The X-Men have her under control, Sentry. She’s dealt with. Don’t get involved.”  
  
The sound of footsteps. Tony was leaving. The door opened. The door shut.  
  
“Bob?” Lindy asked. “Bob, look at me, please.”  
  
He sank back down onto his bed, unable or unwilling to meet his wife’s gaze. She took a deep breath. He’d upset her. He knew that. But he couldn’t... he couldn’t... he...  
  
The sound of footsteps. The door opened. The door shut. His wife had left.  
  
Robert Reynolds stared blankly at the ceiling, left alone with himself, and the laughter of the Void rang loudly in his mind.  
  
 _ **End Chapter 11**_  
  
  
Author’s note: Many thanks to joehundredaire for his assistance with this and other chapters


	12. The X-Factor

“Are you serious?” The speaker was in his early thirties, maybe. Brown hair, brown eyes, 5’11” or so, wearing a green shirt with two parallel rows of yellow circles, a black jacket, black slacks, black shoes. His name was Jamie Madrox, he was seated in Scott Summers’ office, and he was currently regarding Scott with the most dubious of looks.  
  
“Very,” Scott replied.  
  
“Why us? Hell, why haven’t you handed her over to SHIELD? They’re sure as hell better equipped to investigate something like this.”  
  
“SHIELD doesn’t have the means to keep her under wraps. We do. And why you?” Scott met Jamie’s gaze. “You’re good at what you do, and you’re a known factor. An ally. We know we can trust you to do the right thing. And a friend recommended you.”  
  
Jamie scoffed. “You remember who you’re talking to, right?”  
  
“I remember,” Scott said.  
  
“So you want to hire us to trace this girl - who doesn’t exist according to official records - back to whoever it is that was pulling her strings - a man who might not even exist in this dimension?”  
  
“That’s right.”  
  
“... You know that we’re busy with our own investigations, right?”  
  
Scott nodded.  
  
Jamie sighed. “We’ll see what we can do. No promises, but we’ll do what we can.”  
  
Scott smiled. “I knew I could count on you.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah.”  
  
Jamie didn’t particularly like that Scott Summers thought of him as a ‘known factor.’ Something in him chafed at that. Reminded him of what that duplicate had said, after M-Day. It bothered him that the dupe’s words resonated so strongly, but there they were:  
  
The fly in the ointment.  
The spanner in the works.  
Unpredictable.  
  
\---------------  
  
A New World in my View  
by P.H. Wise  
An X-Men Crossover Fanfic  
  
Chapter 12: The X-Factor  
  
Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.  
  
\---------------  
  
“So that’s Divine, huh?” Noriko asked.  
  
Karen nodded. A woman named Rogue had brought them down, and was in another room at the moment, but probably going to be out at any moment. She and her friends stood at the entrance to the titanium-steel holding cell. With its walls and door reinforced with a force shield plus a nullification field able to render a mutant unable to use their powers, the cell would have been enough for most threats. Divine, though, was not a mutant, and the nullification field would do to her precisely nothing. So what dominated the cell was a bit nonstandard: no bed, no toilet, no chain or shackles, but a large transparent stasis tube inside which Power Girl’s clone rested, held in suspended animation.  
  
It was weird, looking down at a mirror image of herself. Well, except for the hair color.  
  
“I hear Miss Frost is planning to rewrite her brain,” Julian said, making a stabbing motion as if it somehow helped to emphasize ‘rewriting.’ “Just gonna go in there, fry her synapses, and then rewrite her from the ground up.”  
  
“I’m sure Miss Frost would never dream of doing such an awful act, even to an enemy,” Cessily said. Everyone looked at her. She blushed. “... OK, she’d do it in a heartbeat if she thought she had to.”  
  
“Is that OK?” Laurie asked. “Is that really any different from killing her?”  
  
An uncomfortable silence fell.  
  
“Well, what other choice is there?” Cessily asked.  
  
“Good question.”  
  
The speaker was one Karen didn’t recognize. She’d heard the girl approaching - super hearing and all. She turned. The girl was blonde, her hair in pig tails. She had green eyes, and she wore a white tank-top over a blue skirt with orange and black striped leggings.  
  
“You a new student?” Julian asked, and folded his arms. “You know you shouldn’t be down here without a teacher, right?”  
  
“I know lots of things,” the girl replied. Karen pegged her as somewhere in the neighborhood of sixteen, maybe. Hard to tell.  
  
Karen raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Like what?”  
  
The girl shrugged. “I know you’ve got an appointment you’re not going to want to be late for, today. And that going home is going to make you angry.”  
  
Noriko made a face. “What are you, a fortune teller?”  
  
The girl shrugged a second time.  
  
“Then I’m not impressed,” Noriko said. “I can do way better than that. ‘A meeting with a stranger will change your life.’" She gestured to the stasis tank where Divine slept. "Or how about ‘I sense that you’re having a problem with a friend or relative’?”  
  
The girl gave Noriko an annoyed look, but said nothing.  
  
“Who are you, anyways?” Karen asked.  
  
The girl smiled, as if amused by a private joke. “I’m Layla Miller,” she said. She might have gone on, but a voice called down the hall at that moment.  
  
“Layla!” Woman’s voice. Scottish accent.  
  
The group turned. A woman with short red hair was fast approaching. “When Jamie said you could tag along, I doubt he meant ‘could sneak into off-limits parts of the mansion’,” she said.  
  
“Rahne?” Noriko asked.  
  
The woman smiled. “Hello, everyone. Keeping out of trouble?”  
  
“Your hair,” Laurie said, staring.  
  
Rahne grinned, running her fingers through her buzz-cut hair. “Figured it was time for a change,” she said. “You like it?”  
  
Laurie nodded. “It looks good,” she lied.  
  
Layla shrugged, then. “We going?”  
  
Rahne gave Layla an irritated look. “Aye,” she said.  
  
Karen and the others exchanged glances as the two made their way back the way Rahne had come.  
  
\---------------  
  
Three hundred soldiers dead. Six combat helicopters destroyed. Two humvees destroyed. Half a mile of public land reduced to a series of pockmarked craters. The mission only saved from complete disaster by the intervention of assets from the Avengers and the X-Men. To say that Maria Hill was having a bad day was to understate the matter. She’d never felt any particular urge to drink profusely, but about now it seemed like a reasonable thing to do.  
  
The day after the biggest failure her career had ever known, a failure which had in all likelihood torpedoed that career and sent it straight to the bottom, Maria Hill sank into her office chair. She had been... wrong.  
  
And here he was, President of the United States on her personal comm-channel, ready to tell her all about the mistake she’d made.  
  
“I expect your resignation by tomorrow,” he said.  
  
“I don’t work for you, sir,” she replied. “SHIELD is an international agency under the purview of the United Nations. I know we like to pretend differently, but it would require a full vote by the security council...”  
  
“The vote is scheduled for Tuesday.”  
  
That was it then. The sense of resignation she felt must have showed on her face, because his expression softened.  
  
“For what it’s worth, Maria, I’m sorry it turned out this way. You’re a good agent, but you made a monumentally bad call. The sort of bad call I can’t just sweep under the rug.”  
  
She didn’t reply. Didn’t look up.  
  
“Do you really intend to put SHIELD through this? The official investigation into your mistake? A complete neutering of its ability to function while the wheels of the bureaucracy move towards your dismissal? Don’t disappoint me, Maria.”  
  
Silence. He disconnected a moment later. Three hundred dead. She’d been wrong. So very, very wrong.  
  
And there, alone, in the dark, Maria Hill said what she could never say in public. Not to Tony. Not to Captain America. Not even to the President of the United States. Never in a million years. There, in the dark, whispered to the empty room: “... I’m sorry.”  
  
It didn’t help.  
  
\---------------  
  
The responsibilities of a king were many. It was more than just being a head of state. The king and his land were one, as the king and his people were one. Namor, King of Atlantis, had privilege beyond those of any ordinary Atlantean, but with that privilege came responsibilities. Sometimes, meeting those responsibilities brought him grief. Sometimes, meeting those responsibilities was a pleasure. Taking vengeance upon the one who had maimed Namorita - his cousin and member of the royal family of Atlantis - would be the latter.  
  
He and his honor guard stood at the gates of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, and he was not impressed with what he saw.  
  
“Sir, you’ll have to wait,” the soldier at the gate told him. “I need to check this with my superior.”  
  
They would have him wait? They would have him ‘go through channels?’ “I think not,” he replied.  
  
He went through the gate. Literally. A mass of twisted, discarded metal was all that was left in his wake. His honor guard followed him through, and the guard stared, dumbfounded.  
  
Two Sentinels were on them eight seconds later. “Halt! This is a restricted area! You will drop your weapons and place your hands over your head!”  
  
Sentinels. They had sent Sentinels to face him. The X-Men under guard. Hundreds of mutants living in what he could only describe as an ethnic ghetto here on the grounds of the institute, tents mingling with more permanent structures right up to the mansion itself. Did they suppose that because his human half bore the mutant genome that he felt threatened by such machines? Only one response could be made.  
  
“IMPERIUS REX!”  
  
He shot into the air and delivered a titanic blow to the first robot’s midsection, the fist of a king against reinforced armor plating. The armor plating lost that fight. The robot fell, a five foot hole ripped through it by the power of the Atlantean king.  
  
“TARGET IS HOSTILE!” the panicked voice of the other Sentinel called, and that piqued his curiousity. These creatures had always been emotionless. Now they knew fear? “ENGAGING!”  
  
“HOLD!” a woman’s voice called from the back of an approaching jeep. “Stand down, Sentinels!” A blonde woman. Impressive, as surfaces went. More impressive, the Sentinel did as she commanded, lowering its arm: the two which had been en route from the other side of the grounds halted in mid-air. The jeep pulled up in front of him, and the woman turned towards him. “My apologies, King Namor. We didn’t know you were coming.”  
  
“The failure of SHIELD to inform you of my impending visit is not my concern,” he replied. “You are Valerie Cooper, are you not? Where are the X-Men, Miss Cooper?”  
  
Valerie gestured to the mansion. “My men have sent word of your arrival. I’d like to keep ‘misunderstandings’ to a minimum.”  
  
“We shall see,” he replied. Not the most diplomatic answer he could have given, but an honest one.  
  
He made his way to the mansion, leaving a very worried looking Valerie Cooper in his wake.  
  
\---------------  
  
Two hours. Two hours till her appointment with Stephen Strange. Two hours till she returned to her own body. Two hours until all of this was nothing but a memory. Karen - or was it Xander? - shook her head. “How do you tell someone about something like this?” she wondered aloud. “Do you just go up to them and say, ‘hey, I just thought you should know, I’m actually a guy from another universe who’s been stuck in this body for the last few months, and now I’m going back to my old body and my old home’?”  
  
Kara gave Karen a level look. “They’re your friends, aren’t they?”  
  
“Yeah, but... I dunno. Maybe if I hadn’t lied about it at the beginning, but...” she trailed off. “I don’t think any of them would be my friends if I hadn’t.”  
  
“You don’t give them enough credit. They’re better people than you think.”  
  
“Maybe. But I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be very understanding about something like that, so, yeah, I’m having a hard time seeing them blowing it off and being all, ‘no big deal!’”  
  
They were in the bathroom in the room Karen shared with Noriko. Or rather, they were just leaving it, the sound of the flushing toilet loud in the room for a moment, followed by the sound of the water faucet as she took a moment to wash her hands. Once, Karen had been absolutely mortified by … well, ordinary, day to day biological processes in her new body. Now, it just was. The idea of shaving her legs had seemed like a blow to her masculinity. Now, well, with Kara’s knowledge of how her power worked, Karen had used her heat vision to produce the same effect as laser hair removal: not permanent removal, but a permanent reduction of hair growth. She only needed to touch it up once a week or so at this point, and that no longer bothered her. A lot of things no longer bothered her, and it kind of bothered her that they no longer bothered her, if that made any sense. A little less than three months seemed like too short a time for things to stop bothering her.  
  
Well, it made sense to Karen, anyways.  
  
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get back into your real body?” Kara asked.  
  
Karen blushed.  
  
The look on Kara’s face at that moment was one difficult to fully describe. “... Seriously?” she asked.  
  
Karen blushed more. ‘What? A guy’s got needs, and so does a girl, and you never let me...’ She tried not to continue that line of thought. She was entirely unsuccessful, and in another moment, she was blushing so much that even her ears turned red.  
  
“A girl may have needs,” Kara said, “But the idea of letting a guy controlling her body service them for her is too creepy for words, OK?”  
  
‘Almost three months...’ Karen thought woefully.  
  
“You think I don’t know that? … Can we talk about something else?”  
  
Karen left the room, then, heading down the halls of the Xavier Institute, passing Kitty Pryde and Rachel Grey in the hall. Rachel’s expression when she looked Karen’s way was comparable to what Kara’s had been a few moments earlier.  
  
‘... That girl’s a telepath,’ Karen thought.  
  
Rachel continued to stare.  
  
“Yup,” Kara said, blushing almost as intensely as Karen.  
  
‘She just heard everything we just said.’  
  
Now Rachel was blushing.  
  
“Yup,” Kara said.  
  
‘... Death is looking like kind of an appealing alternative right now,’ Karen thought.  
  
“Yup,” Kara said.  
  
Kitty tugged on Rachel’s arm, and the two of them went off down the hall.  
  
‘... Well it’s not like I’ve got any shortage of times I’ve humiliated myself in front of a cute girl,’ Karen thought despondently.  
  
“It’s not THAT bad,” Kara said.  
  
Karen shook her head. ‘OK. New subject. What are YOU going to do when you get your body back under your control?’  
  
“Take a bath. Fly to the moon and back. See if anyone needs my help. … Go home.” A pause. “I wonder if it’s been three months back home?” Kara asked, not really expecting an answer. “... I hope Atlee’s OK.”  
  
Karen smiled. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing Willow and Buffy again.’ Her smile faded. ‘God,’ she thought, ‘I even miss CORDELIA, and I’m treasurer of the ‘We Hate Cordelia’ club.’  
  
“The ‘We Hate Cordelia Club’?” Kara asked.  
  
‘Don’t ask.’  
  
“IMPERIUS REX!” someone shouted, followed by the sound of ripping metal and a gut-wrenching impact.  
  
In a flash, Karen was outside, flying, zooming along towards the entrance to the mansion.  
  
A Sentinel was down. A man with black hair and pointed ears was leading a group of blue-skinned people with face-masks towards the mansion.  
  
Karen landed in their path. “OK,” she said, “I don’t know what your problem is, but if you intend to attack this …” she trailed off as she noticed the blonde woman in the approaching jeep who was frantically waving to get her attention. “You’re not actually hostile, are you?” she asked, feeling somewhat embarrassed.  
  
Namor smirked. “You must be the original,” he said, holding up his arm: his honor guard halted.  
  
Karen glanced towards the approaching jeep, then back to Namor. “You’re here about Divine, huh?”  
  
Namor nodded. “Your clone stands accused of the attempted murder of a member of the Atlantean royal family. As King of Atlantis, I intend to see to it that she be transferred to my custody.”  
  
Karen stared.  
  
“He can’t be serious,” Kara muttered.  
  
“You can’t be serious,” Karen echoed, and then mentally frowned, ‘Why can’t he be serious?’ she asked.  
  
“She’s one of the most deadly creatures on the planet. Taking her out stasis - and more importantly, out of Emma’s control - is a recipe for disaster.”  
  
Karen echoed Kara’s words, and Namor scowled. “You had best pray that the X-Men do not agree with your opinion on the matter. I will not be denied this.”  
  
Karen shook her head. “Whatever. Nice to meet you, Aquaman.” With that, she rocketed up into the air and kept going until she hit orbit, leaving an offended and slightly puzzled Namor to wonder: ‘... Aquaman?’  
  
\---------------  
  
Sagan once said, ‘the Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us - there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation of a distant memory, as if we were falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.’ And there, floating in space with all the earth below her, watching the interplay of the solar wind and the earth’s magnetosphere, Karen felt all of that and more. Kara’s powers were beyond amazing. She could see... so much. Hear so much. This she would remember. However briefly, a boy from Sunnydale, and undeserving of such a bounty, had walked among the stars. It looked so different. So much grander than what she knew. She was seeing parts of the universe that humanity had never been equipped to perceive. And there was the Earth floating in the middle of it all, so finite, so lonely, the whole human species carried on its back. And it was... pretty.  
  
Karen frowned. Calling it ‘pretty’ didn’t even come close, but she didn’t have a better word. She shook her head. ‘I should be used to this by now,’ she thought.  
  
Kara smiled.  
  
‘You’re used to it, right?’  
  
“To an extent,” Kara replied. “It never stops forming the context of your daily life. And that context will always separate Kryptonians from human beings. You see the spectrum of visible light. We see everything.”  
  
‘There’s not a lot about being in your body that I’m going to miss,’ Karen thought. ‘... But this, this I’m going to miss.’  
  
She floated there for a good ten minutes, watching as the sun’s terminator line spread across the Midwest. Watching as the world woke up, watching as the occasional satellite passed by in the distance. Watching and hearing the radio-song of the Earth’s magnetosphere.  
  
And then she spotted the enormous high-tech space station with three futuristic star ships docked at it, a fourth departing, and a fifth on approach.  
  
“No way,” she muttered. Or tried to. It was hard to talk in a vacuum. She didn’t need to breathe at this point: the yellow sunlight supplied all the sustenance she needed, but it still felt weird to feel the air empty out of her lungs with her attempt at speech.  
  
‘The hell is that?’ Karen wondered.  
  
“Don’t ask me,” Kara replied. “This isn’t my world.”  
  
A small vessel undocked from the space station and made its way over towards her, coming closer and closer, and then...  
  
 _‘Well, well,’_ Irma’s telepathic voice said all at once. _‘Between making Rachel blush worse than I’ve ever seen, offending the King of Atlantis, and now violating the airspace of... OK, I’m not sure what that is, you’ve racked up an impressive tally of accomplishments in the last hour, haven’t you?’_  
  
‘Urk,’ Karen thought.  
  
 _‘Get back down here before those space ships decide to open fire. We need to talk.’_  
  
Karen glanced at Kara’s ghostly form and found no help there. With a shrug, she descended. She went slowly in order to not burn up her clothing on reentry, but her shoes still got a little singed. Irma was broadcasting her location, which was good: it would have been hard to hone in on a single individual from orbit, otherwise, Karen spotted her far, far below, standing next to the entrance of the maze on the grounds of the Xavier estate.  
  
She descended. Landed without a sound.  
  
“Hey,” she said.  
  
Irma looked up. “Hey,” she replied.  
  
A pause. “You weren’t planning to say goodbye,” Irma said. A statement of fact. An undertone of anger. Ice beneath that.  
  
Karen looked down at the ground. “I... uh...”  
  
“Don’t bother, Xander,” Irma said. “I already know every excuse you’ve invented for this. I never pegged you for a coward, before.”  
  
That struck a chord. For the span of maybe half a second, Karen felt a deep, angry resentment. For the span of maybe half a second, she kind of hated Irma. And then she felt ashamed. “What was I supposed to say?” she asked.  
  
“‘Goodbye’,” Irma said. “That’s all. I know what’s going to happen, Xander. I know that I’m not going to see you again in that body. Maybe not ever. And even if I do, you'll be different. I just thought that maybe you wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”  
  
She was angry. Karen felt like she kind of deserved it. What happened next was more instinct than anything else: she moved in, took Irma into her arms, and kissed her. A deep, prolonged kiss, filled with longing, and with that bittersweet sense of impermanence. Irma welcomed it, leaning into her. And when it was over, Karen looked into Irma’s eyes and whispered, “... Goodbye.”  
  
And then she was airborne again, flying again, moving off towards Doctor Strange’s home, scrubbing at her eyes and calling herself an idiot the whole way.  
  
\---------------  
  
The Sentry had spent the day in pain. Robert Reynolds had spent the day in pain. Reed Richards had done his best to accelerate the healing process, and the advanced technology of the Baxter building’s medical facilities were indeed a wonder: provided he went in for a treatment every day, the Sentry would be fully healed within a week. A compound fracture, fully healed, one week.  
  
The idea that he had been injured at all still burned like a brand to the gut. Only one creature had ever been able to hurt him, and he had thrown it into the sun. The Void would be back. He knew that. It always came back. Always undid all the good he’d accomplished. Always. But now, this... Divine could hurt him.  
  
Divine.  
  
Tony said to leave her alone. The X-Men had it handled. Reed agreed with Tony, and that hurt. A rational person might have taken their warnings for what they were: a reflection of a unique situation wherein his power set happened to be a bad match up against the villain’s. It happened to everyone, Reed had said. That was one reason why you had team mates. If the villain fed on fire, Johnny had the rest to fall back on. If the villain grew more powerful with kinetic impact, The Thing could rely on his team mates to find another way to take it down. It happened.  
  
It didn’t happen to the Sentry.  
  
Bob Reynolds, not a rational man, was curled up with his arms around his legs, one arm still in the armored cast that Reed had made for it, rocking back and forth on a church pew. It was dark. He was alone. And someone had hurt him. He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, ignoring CLOC, ignoring the whole world. He just knew that it hurt, and it shouldn’t.  
  
It was a Victorian church. Wood construction. High ceilings that peaked in the middle. Two rows of pews. Stained glass windows along the eastern wall, lit up with the light of the morning sun. A crucifix on the front wall, and an altar before it on the stage, and a pulpit in front of that. He’d come here because it was empty.  
  
But it wasn’t empty.  
  
He heard the man’s approach long before he saw him. Soft on his feet, but loud for one with super-hearing. Footsteps on the rich, burgundy carpet that went the length of the church, between the two rows of pews. A presence. He kept rocking.  
  
“What troubles you, my son?” asked a kindly voice.  
  
An older man with white hair dressed in a black suit with a white shirt, a black tie, and a silver cross hanging down over the tie. He was smiling, and Bob stopped rocking, looked up and met his gaze for a good six seconds. The man didn’t look away. Bob did.  
  
“Is it your injury which brings you here?” the man asked. “Do you seek the Lord’s healing?”  
  
“She shouldn’t have been able to hurt me,” Bob muttered.  
  
The old man smiled grimly at that. “A woman did this to you, then? I might have known.”  
  
Bob looked up.  
  
“It’s no mystery, son. By the actions of one woman in the Garden of Eden, all mankind was made to suffer. Theirs has ever been the sex more prone to wickedness. A woman tempted man into sin,” he looked a bit rueful, “As a woman once tempted me into sin. To forsake my divine calling. It’s no mystery at all.”  
  
Bob shook his head, his thoughts growing clearer now. “No,” he said. “There was no garden. Women aren’t... who are you?”  
  
“Me? I am the Lord’s humble servant. But if you need a name, then I am the Reverend William Stryker. This is my church you have sought refuge within, and it is open to all who are in need.”  
  
Bob’s expression became more closed off. More guarded. “You’re being tried for attempted murder.”  
  
“A vicious lie. The devil moves against God’s chosen, son. He fears the good work we might do.” He sat down next to Bob, then, putting a hand on the Sentry’s shoulder. “When a man comes through those doors in your state, it’s usually because he wants to talk. The Lord is here for you, young man. As his his servant.”  
  
Silence for about fifteen seconds. And then, “... I thought I was rid of the Void,” Bob whispered. “I threw him into the sun. But he always comes back.”  
  
Stryker hid his smile, and nodded along sympathetically. He knew who Sentry was. He had heard of the Void. Most people had. “This ‘Void’ has returned?”  
  
“I heard him,” Bob confessed. “When I fought with... her. Divine. I heard the Void’s laughter.”  
  
“And you’d like to know what that means.”  
  
Bob didn’t answer.  
  
“Son, I am no Sentry. The all-mighty never saw fit to bless me with any form of power beyond what is common to all his children: the indwelling of the holy spirit. But that girl, that girl who falsely claims the title of ‘Divine,’ let’s consider her a moment, shall we?” Stryker paused, wetting his lips with his tongue before he went on. “Her powers mirror your own, do they not? Hers and her sister’s?”  
  
Bob nodded. “I... yes, they do.”  
  
“And there are two of them. One light, one dark. What does that say to you?”  
  
Bob shivered. One light. One dark. One serving the cause of good, one in the service of wickedness. Powers that mirrored his own. He didn’t want to think about the implications of that idea.  
  
“If this situation really is what it appears to be, can you really afford not to take action?”  
  
“But the light only made her stronger... she only grew more powerful...”  
  
“The Lord once directed his servant Gideon to attack the Midianites under cover of darkness,” Stryker said.  
  
“I...” Bob shook his head. “No. You’re not... I shouldn’t listen to you.”  
  
“Gideon doubted as well. Listen to me, Sentry, and listen well: God does not require blind obedience. Behold, I shall perform a miracle. Give me your maimed arm.”  
  
Bob looked doubtfully down at his cast, then at Stryker. He rose to his feet, then. “It was a mistake to come here,” he muttered. “You’re trying to manipulate me. You’ve got a grudge against the X-Men, and you know that their mansion is where she’s being held...”  
  
“Give me your maimed arm, son. If God does not restore you here and now, then you can be on your way and content in the knowledge that I am but a senile old man, as deluded as he is foolish.”  
  
Bob started to leave. The laughter of the Void rang out in his thoughts once more, and he stopped in his tracks. He turned, and he offered his arm, cast and all, to William Stryker.  
  
Stryker laid his hands upon Bob’s arm above and below the cast. “Lord God all-mighty, your servant the Sentry stands now at a crossroads in his life, a terrible choice, with every path shrouded in darkness. All mighty God, just as Gideon once asked for and received a sign of your favor, I now ask you to bestow a sign upon the Sentry to show him your will. Bring healing to him as you have brought healing to so many throughout the ages.” His voice rose, gaining a richness and a power that it had lacked before, “I ask that you knit these bones back together, and do the work of healing your servant here and now, oh Lord!”  
  
The sensation of pins and needles began in the Sentry’s arm, and soon it spread, down to the tips of his fingers, up to the top of his head.  
  
“In Jesus name,” Stryker cried, his voice reaching a crescendo, “And for his sake I ask this, in order that your servant might know your will!” And then Stryker looked Bob in the eye and said, “Sentry, In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, be healed!”  
  
There was a flare of something white-hot in his arm, and Bob jerked away from Stryker. The cast cracked down the middle and fell to the ground, and the pain vanished, and Bob stared at his arm in wonder: all sign of the injury was gone. “... What?”  
  
And Stryker grinned like a madman. “The sign is given,” he said.  
  
“This is...” Sentry began.  
  
“A miracle,” Stryker finished.  
  
\---------------  
  
“You think she actually thinks she’s foolin’ anyone with that fake English accent?” Rahne Sinclair asked, her own Scottish accent a little thicker than normal. Probably in reaction to having been in the presence of Emma Frost.  
  
Jamie raised an eyebrow. “What?”  
  
“Emma,” Rahne said. “She and hers are an old Boston family.”  
  
They were back at the main office for X-Factor Investigations: a low rent place in what used to be Mutant Town over near Alphabet City on Manhattan Island. A call had been sent out, and now they were waiting for the rest of the team to check in before they started work on the Divine case.  
  
Jamie thought about that for a moment.  
  
“You’re hearing it, right?” Rahne put on a really bad imitation on an intense Boston accent, then, which came out sounding the bastard child of a Bostonian and a deep Southern accent: “‘Ah’m Emma Frawst. The concaht last night was wicked pissa.’”  
  
“I make it a point never to make fun of a woman who can kill me with her brain,” Jamie said.  
  
Rahne made a dismissive gesture.  
  
They heard the sound of Strong Guy making his way up the stairs to the office, then, followed by the tell-tale shriek of Siryn’s arrival. M was a little less obvious about it, and once the last of them had arrived, Layla made her way up the stairs and into the office from where she’d been waiting out front.  
  
“OK,” Jamie said. “So the X-Men have a job for us. They’re even paying us and everything.” A very slight smirk. “Makes it all official.”  
  
“Don’t we already have jobs?” Strong Guy asked, playing the fool for all that he knew better.  
  
“That we do,” Jamie said. “And we’re not dropping everything for this. It looks big, but it might be a wild goose chase. We’ll see. Either way, we’re getting paid.”  
  
“What’s the catch?” Rictor asked.  
  
“Have a look for yourself,” Jamie replied, opening up the manila envelope and depositing the papers he’d gotten from Scott Summers on the desk. The others gathered round.  
  
“Divine?” M asked. “Jamie, please tell me we’re not investigating whoever might be backing the girl who murdered the New Warriors?”  
  
“We’re not investigating whoever might be backing the girl who murdered the New Warriors,” Jamie replied easily.  
  
M sighed. “It doesn’t work if you lie, darling.”  
  
Rahne looked at Layla crossways, then, “What about you, then?” she asked. “You know stuff, aye? What do you know about this?”  
  
Layla shrugged.  
  
“What, no ‘you’re going to want to take this case’?” Rahne asked.  
  
“I’m not a magic 8-ball,” Layla replied. “And I’m pretty sure you can make up your own minds about this one.”  
  
M passed the papers she’d been examining to Rictor. “So that’s all Emma was able to get out of her mind? Description of some guy who showed up and steered her towards the Stamford house?”  
  
“Well, that and a replica of the business card he showed her,” Jamie said. “Did I forget to mention that?” he produced the card from his pocket and set it on the table face down. After a moment, he flipped it over to display the front.  
  
The back of the card showed the neatly handwritten address of the Stamford house.   
  
The front of the card showed the corporate logo of Imperial Industries.  
  
“... Bollocks,” M said.  
  
 _ **End Chapter 12**_


	13. The Unjoining

Rupert Giles sat at the desk in his office in the Sunnydale High School library, reading over a book on Sumerian mythology. Reading for pleasure was more of a luxury for him than it used to be: the majority of his reading for the last year and a half had been dictated by necessity. Such was the price one paid for being Watcher to an active Slayer, though he rather thought that the Watcher journals should have mentioned that particular price in advance.  
  
It was January 21. The day after Buffy’s birthday. Between the threat of the Judge being rebuilt and everything else that had happened, nobody had felt much like celebrating, but he’d insisted. If Buffy Summers was to meet her responsibilities as Slayer, she needed, he had come to believe, a very real sense of what she was fighting for. Friends. Birthdays. Dates. A sense of the world she was protecting. And yet he worried. He worried about his Slayer. About her friends. About the fact that she was dating a vampire. About the fact that they had sent said Vampire to take the arm of the judge away to Tibet. About the fact that he had not heard back from his Slayer since she’d left to see Angel to the docks last night.  
  
The bell rang. Seven fifteen. First period was about to begin. Giles set his book down on the desk, placed a book mark between the pages, and shut it with a thump.  
  
Abruptly, the temperature dropped five degrees. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Goosebumps went up and down his arms. Fearing the worst, Giles rose to his feet and walked out into the main area of the library.  
  
A tiny mote of light hung suspended in mid-air, directly above the point he knew to correspond to the physical location of the Hellmouth.  
  
Rupert Giles’ mouth went dry as he stared at the point of light. “Dear Lord,” he murmured.  
  
The point of light pulsed, growing ever so slightly larger.  
  
The door to the library opened, and Buffy rushed through. The sight of her, alive and intact, was not as great a relief as it would otherwise have been had there not been a point of light slowly growing into being above the Hellmouth, but he took what comfort he could.  
  
“Giles!” she called. “The Judge is...” she trailed off, staring at the point of light. “Oh God. Is the world ending again?”  
  
He shook his head. “I, I’m not sure.”  
  
And far, far away, in a reality far removed from the one in which Rupert Giles waited, Stephen Strange continued to chant the words of the long ritual which would open the way between worlds.

\------------------  
  
A New World in my View  
by P.H. Wise  
An X-Men Crossover Fanfic  
  
Chapter 13: The Unjoining  
  
Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Entertainment LLC. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby.  
  
\------------------  
  
Karen sat at the center of a great magical seal, lines of power coursing around her, the voice of Doctor Stephen Strange rising and falling as he chanted a sonorous Latin chant. The ritual was an extended one. One that would take hours. Her home reality was a distant one, and even the likes of Stephen Strange could not open a gate between the two as easily as flipping a switch. It was now forty five minutes into the ritual. The air seemed to hum. If Kara’s body had any fillings, they’d probably have been vibrating. The device - the damaged Draconian Katra - was fitted snugly to her left hand. And she was bored out of her mind.  
  
It might seem strange, being bored to tears sitting in the middle of a mystic circle as the Sorcerer Supreme prepared the spell that would send you home, but after the first half hour, Latin chanting and ominous pulses of energy start to lose their charm. At least, that’s how Karen justified it in her own mind. Could be that she was also just an extremely shallow person, but she preferred to think that anyone would react the same if they were stuck in a magical circle with one foot half asleep, the other fully asleep, not enough room to stretch them out and fix the problem, and kind of having to go to the bathroom.  
  
Karen had arrived almost two hours earlier, been greeted by Wong, and then been shown into the study to wait.  
  
Doctor Strange had arrived to meet her half an hour later. The conversation between them had been... memorable.  
  
\------------------  
  
“I remember how to use the artifact, Doctor. You told me yesterday. I don’t forget things like that. … Not since I wound up in this body, anyways.”  
  
The room reminded Karen of the Sunnydale library. it was the smell more than anything else. Musty old books, she supposed, smelled the same no matter which dimension you were in. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and she had only just stood up from where she'd been waiting in a very comfortable chair next to a reading desk in front of a crackling fire.  
  
Strange smiled. "Then you also remember that there's no guarantee that you'll be deposited in the same spot as your body. You should expect a variance of anywhere from a dozen feet to a few miles. Either way, it should not prove a problem."  
  
Karen nodded. "Thank you, Doctor."  
  
Kara nodded her agreement. "Yes, thank you." She smiled hopefully. "It's hard to imagine this nightmare is almost over."  
  
Karen frowned. "I haven't been that bad, have I?"  
  
Kara gave Karen a look. "You try going from being twenty five one second, teen hormone city the next and see how you feel," she said.  
  
Karen blinked. "... Oh."  
  
Kara smiled apologetically. "... the whole 'I'm fully aware of everything that happens to me but a prisoner in my own body for almost three months' didn't help, either. No offense, Karen, but that's..."  
  
Karen looked uncomfortable. "I... I guess I never thought of it that way. For what it's worth, I'm sorry."  
  
"You're forgiven," Kara replied. Then she smiled. "It's not actually your fault. But I might have a conversation with that Chaos mage once we get to your reality."  
  
Karen looked to the Doctor, then, something having occurred to her suddenly. “Doctor Strange,” she began. The good Doctor looked her way. “Back when you were helping the Fantastic Four to, er, test me, I never asked, but what would you have done if I’d failed?”  
  
Doctor Strange met Karen’s gaze. “Understand that before your arrival, we were still reeling from the fallout of a powerful ally’s descent into madness. She was a woman with the power to reshape reality. A Chaos mage, and a mutant. In her madness, she brought untold suffering to countless others. People died. We did not want to take the risk of such a thing ever occurring again, and...”  
  
Kara raised an eyebrow. “Would you have killed us?” she asked, interrupting the Sorcerer Supreme.  
  
That seemed to take him aback. He replied after an uncomfortable pause. “Likely not,” he said. “Likely we would have exiled you, as we did to another who proved too dangerous to allow to remain on the Earth.”  
  
“As you did to another?”  
  
A look of guilt crossed Stephen’s face, then. “It was a difficult decision. One we arrived at after much deliberation.”  
  
Kara stared at Doctor Strange, and it was Doctor Strange who looked away.  
  
“I have preparations to make,” Strange said. “Wong will show you in when it is time.” He walked out of the room, and the door shut behind him.  
  
“... Can we not make the man who’s sending us home angry at us?” Karen asked.  
  
Kara didn’t reply.  
  
\------------------  
  
So here Karen was. Here she waited. Kara hadn’t spoken since the conversation with Doctor Strange.  
  
The chant went on.  
  
\------------------  
  
“No, Stryker,” the Sentry said. “You and yours will not accompany me. I will go to Xavier’s at sundown, alone, and attempt to discern the truth of this.”  
  
Stryker smiled. “Of course, son. Of course. You must do as your conscience demands.” He produced a device, then. “Take this with you. It will shield you from their telepaths. Consider it a gift from the Lord.” He pressed the device into Sentry’s hands.  
  
As quickly as that, the Sentry was gone. There was a rush of wind, and then nothing. Stryker raised his arm, and pressed his finger into a spot just above his elbow. The tactile hologram which had disguised his artificial limb faded, revealing the new arm in its place: Nimrod’s arm. A tiny display showed Sentry’s location. Once the man was gone, Stryker produced a phone from his pocket and tapped out a text message. He dared not speak the message aloud for fear that the Sentry would hear him, but this was reasonably secure as far as Bob Reynolds went. The message read: ‘It is time to win the war between heaven and hell.’  
  
Stryker left an hour later at the head of a small army of Purifiers.  
  
\------------------  
  
“You must realize that we can’t release her to you,” Emma said. She, Scott and Namor were in Scott’s meticulously organized office. Namor’s honor guard waited outside. The sun had only just set, and a faint glow lingered in the western sky.  
  
“And why is that?” Namor asked, being very, very patient.  
  
“The Avengers gave her into our custody with instructions that she be held until SHIELD proved able to hold her,” Scott said. “She going to be tried for the murder of the New Warriors and of three hundred soldiers.”  
  
Namor didn’t like that answer. He didn’t like it at all, and it showed on his face.  
  
“I sympathize, but we can’t just give her to you without...”  
  
“I had not expected the X-Men to be government lapdogs,” Namor said.  
  
“Excuse me?” Scott asked.  
  
“Do you also perform tricks on command?” Namor asked. “Have you grown so used to the presence of Sentinels upon your threshold that you think their presence right and natural? Do you not see what they have done to you? What they are doing to you?”  
  
“Enlighten us,” Emma said.  
  
“How many mutants would you say now live upon the grounds of this institute?”  
  
“As of today, six hundred and three,” Scott replied.  
  
“And they are sending more every day. You X-Men are able to come and go provided you have a military escort. Is the same true of your refugees?” A pause, and then Namor went on, “Of course it isn’t. They’re contained here. Why would your government allow the mutant problem free access to the outside world?”  
  
“That’s not what’s going on here, Namor,” Scott insisted.  
  
Namor snorted. “Open your eyes, Summers. You are familiar with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are you not? Article 9. ‘No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile’. Or perhaps your own American Constitution is more compelling to you? How about, ‘No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.’ Tell me, did this Office of National Emergency ask your permission, or the permission of Charles Xavier to quarter troops upon these premises, or did they simply quarter them and then try to convince you that it was for the best?”  
  
Neither Scott nor Emma spoke.  
  
“One does not garrison a school and a private residence with military forces ‘for your protection,’ Summers. Neither does gathering an ethnic group together in an internment camp ‘for their own protection’ lead to better conditions for that group. And now they’ve enlisted you in the quartering of federal prisoners, and you go along with it? The plight of mutants is indeed dire, but I had not thought it was so dire that we had lost our pride.”  
  
Scott looked at the ground. “... You sound like Magneto.”  
  
“Do I?” Namor asked. “Then perhaps he has a point.” He shook his head. “Give me the girl, Summers. You needn’t be your government’s lap dog. I have the means to contain her. I have read the briefing: psionics or magic. You need not fear. The greatest sorcerers of Atlantis are to be on hand for the transfer of Divine to our custody.”  
  
Scott began to reply, but whatever he might have said was ended before it could begin, cut off by the sound of an explosion coming from outside, followed by a brief burst of gunfire. A moment later, the mansion’s alarms began to sound.  
  
Scott glared. “What have done, Namor?!”  
  
Namor stood. “This is not my doing, Summers.”  
  
\------------------  
  
The caravan of vehicles inexorably made its way towards the Xavier Institute, each filled with purifiers. The Reverend William Stryker could not but laugh. Everything was going according to God’s plan. Soon, the mutant problem would be no more. Soon, they would strike a blow for heaven! Soon, they would... police barricade?  
  
Stryker frowned deeply. The road ahead was blocked. A police barricade. God was testing him. The whole caravan of purifiers came to a halt. He opened the door of his car and stepped out. “What seems to be the problem, officers?” he asked.  
  
“William Stryker?” a man in a black business suit stepped forward.  
  
“Reverend, if you please,” he said.  
  
“Reverend Stryker, my name is Special Agent Henry Dobbs. We’ve been monitoring you since you paid bail. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”  
  
Stryker laughed. How could he not? This pathetic worm of a man thought he could stand against the will of God? “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said, raising once more the arm he had been granted, the arm which covered the deformity inflicted upon him by the devil who called herself Power Girl. A garish pink light flared. A deep, awful sound thrummed out from the gauntlet as it gathered power, readying itself for the task of destroying this impediment. “I AM GOD’S INSTRUMENT!,” he cried.  
  
The last thing he saw was a muzzle flash from the roof behind the blockade. The bullet tore through his skull like tissue paper. He had no time to rail against his fate. He was afforded no opportunity to protest that this wasn’t the way he was supposed to die. That he deserved better. His body jerked, and he collapsed, dead at the hands of the FBI. A split second late, the gun’s report rang out.   
  
The light of his gauntlet winked out.  
  
\------------------  
  
The Sentry stood before Divine’s stasis chamber, and a trail of wreckage showed the path he had taken, stretching out through the building, out the front doors which now lay blasted off their hinges, through the wreckage of yet another Sentinel whose pilot had made the mistake of attempting to stop him. The pilot lived. The Sentinel was another story. Here he stood. She looked almost peaceful, asleep like that. Almost... beautiful.  
  
The Void was above all else, a liar. It offended him that it would take this form. The distinction in his mind between ‘Power Girl’s Void’ and his ‘Void’ was fading. They were the same.  
  
He ripped the stasis pod out of the wall, triggering alarms all across the building. A lesser creature would have been killed by the shock of coming out of cryo-sleep in such a manner. No precautions taken. No protections. Ripped from the cryo chamber by hands harder than diamonds and cast bodily through a reinforced bulkhead.  
  
Divine drew breath, awoke, looked about blearily. Hospital scrubs adorned her form.  
  
“You won’t win this time, Void,” The Sentry said. “I’m ready for you. I know your tricks. You think you can fool me by using my own powers against me, but that’s not going to work again.”  
  
Her expression seemed unreadable to him, but her eyes gained focus. “You?” she asked incredulously. “Don’t you learn?”   
  
Time seemed to slow down for them both. The Sentry launched himself at her, hoping to bury his fist in her face. His anger bubbled and surged inside him like a living thing, egged on by the very sight of her perfection.  
  
She moved just as fast, scrambling out of the way. His punch caved in the wall she’d come to a rest upon. It took her a full second to fully recover from being dumped from cryo-stasis into wakefulness, but for two opponents moving with such enhanced speed and reaction time, it seemed an eternity. She did not dodge his next twelve blows, caught the thirteenth in her hand, failed to she avoid the knee to the gut, and then she was fighting back, miniature sonic booms rippling through the sublevel as every punch thrown broke the sound barrier. Her eyes narrowed, fixed upon the device Stryker had given him. She feinted, and he was fooled, and she snatched the device off of his uniform.  
  
“Why won’t you just die,” Sentry hissed. “Why must you plague me? Hound my every step? And now in THIS form? I... I want you to die!” They were comparable in terms of fighting skill. Both were more or less just one-two punch brawlers. And here, far from the light of the sun, Divine’s strength was less than his. He gained the advantage, and he flung her headlong. Divine tumbled up through five sub-levels, the ground floor of the mansion, and into the hallway where Emma Frost was even then marshaling the X-Men against the threat which had emerged. Sentry was upon her an instant later, but she reacted slightly more quickly than he, pivoted, and redirected his flying charge, sending him through the wall and into the distance outside the mansion.  
  
Divine’s gaze met Emma’s.  
  
Emma Frost’s eyes widened. She seemed to concentrate, and nothing happened.  
  
Divine quickly deduced what had happened. The device! Of course, nobody who was attacking someone like that bitch who had invaded her mind would do so without a way to shield their thoughts. The device was... oh but this was too precious. “Not working, is it?” she asked, her voice filled with false pity. “Pretty sure I lifted a telepathic scrambler off tall blonde and stupid.”  
  
“I see,” Emma said, not losing her composure. “What do you intend to do?”  
  
Divine shook her head. “It’s nothing personal, but without the scrambler, you’re the single biggest threat to me there is. I can’t have that.” Her eyes flashed as she prepared to discharge a truly massive blast of heat into Emma’s body.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
Emma smirked. "Tell me something, little girl. Exactly what kind of fool do you take me for?"  
  
Divine struggled visibly. She lunged for Emma, but her muscles locked up and she collapsed just short of touching the other woman. “... what did you do...?!”  
  
“I may not be able to access your mind, but I don’t have to. I've had access to it for almost twenty four hours. That's more than enough time to install a few safety protocols. You can't hurt me. Literally can't. How does that feel?"  
  
"I'll... kill... you..."  
  
"I think not," Emma said, a note of contempt entering into her voice. "I had time to install a few other things as well, of course."  
  
Divine struggled with herself, trying to force herself past the block, failing.  
  
"An off-switch, for example." She met Divine’s gaze. "Shibbole...." She was cut off in mid-word.  
  
The Sentry was there once more, and had Emma Frost seized by the throat. “NO!” he roared into her face. “She is MINE to defeat!” He hurled her out the broken wall, and though Emma shifted to diamond form in mid flight, when she hit the ground three miles distant, the impact left her staggered and utterly disoriented. Sentry met Divine’s gaze. “This is between me and the Void.”  
  
That was when Namor slammed his fist into the back of the Sentry’s head at full power, sending the Sentry reeling, his world tilted on its side by the force of the blow and the shockwaves it sent rippling through his grey matter. “She goes with me to answer for her crimes,” he said, glaring down at the Sentry. And then he smirked. “For a man with superhuman senses, you are remarkably inattentive.”  
  
Divine began to move, now fully recovered. She lifted into the air and fled the building.  
  
Namor was fast on her heels.  
  
The forces of the Office of National Emergency opened fire, and Namor’s honor guard as well, concentrating their fire on Divine, hammering her with bullets and electrical discharges from power tridents. She gave them little more thought than she would have a buzzing fly. Namor was more of a threat to her. His strength was problematically high, and he was fast, though not as fast as she was, and she might have been able to capitalize on it had she been more than the one-two punch brawler that she was. Even as Divine and Namor clashed, the Sentry came flying out after the battling pair like a golden thunderbolt, barreling into Divine and taking her straight into the ground from six hundred feet up. The impact destroying several refugee tents. The so called 198 were stampeding away from the conflict now, people panicking, screaming, being trampled. The O*N*E soldiers did what they could to maintain order, but it wasn’t enough. One of the surviving Sentinels attempted to engage the brawlers only to be sent back to the Earth in a rain of fiery metal bits.  
  
“You have NO RIGHT to be here!” The Sentry screamed, his mind cracking even further even as he fought against Divine. It was the power. Using so much energy: if he were to lose control, even for a millisecond. It had been much longer than a millisecond, now. “NO RIGHT! The Sentry and the Void can’t be copied! Can’t be DUPLICATED! I KNOW IT’S YOU!” His eyes blazed like living fire, his skin cracked and glowed as if some impossible internal heat radiated out from within. The air seemed to grow thick. Smothering. Filled with rage.  
  
Irma and her sisters and the New X-Men fled from the school building, heading for the rendezvous point Emma had established outside the zone of conflict. And as explosions and gunfire went off around them, as gods did battle in the skies above, a single thought was broadcast from the mind of the Three-in-One, driven by Irma but amplified by the others: _‘... Karen. Help me.’_  
  
\------------------  
  
The ritual now neared completion. In a matter of moments Karen would be returned to her world, and with it, her original body. The portal crackled with power as Doctor Strange continued his chant, titanic mystical energies swirling around him as he brought the rite towards its end. And in the midst of that chaos, Irma’s voice: _‘... Karen. Help me.’_  
  
Karen’s eyes widened. “Doctor!” she shouted, her voice barely audible above the roar of the gathering energies. “Doctor, wait!”  
  
Doctor Strange did not stop. Could not stop. Another six sentences and the ritual would be done. Time seemed to slow.  
  
Karen looked at Kara. Kara looked at Karen.  
  
“... What do I do?” Karen asked.  
  
“The right thing,” Kara replied.  
  
Kara nodded, clenching her fist as determination welled up within her. “The right thing,” she echoed.  
  
Karen broke the circle, and the ensuing mystical backlash was visible from orbit, pouring upwards in a great pillar of fire which drew in every ounce of magical energy in its path in a self-consuming discharge, and Karen in the eye of the storm.  
  
The discharge flickered, vanished.  
  
Stephen Strange collapsed, clutching at his head in agony.  
  
Karen was gone before Doctor Strange’s knees hit the floor.  
  
\------------------  
  
An explosion ripped across the side of the Xavier mansion, raining flaming debris down upon fleeing students which were caught in mid-air by a controlled gust of wind. Storm ascended into the sky, and with her, clouds began to gather, the night growing darker and then darker still as the wind picked up. “Goddess protect us, the Sentry has gone mad! Psylocke!” she called. “Join your power to Rachel’s! Stop them before there isn’t a school to save!”  
  
The combined telekinetic might of the two mutants lashed out at The Sentry and Divine, and for one shining moment, they were held in place. Namor ascended, almost a walking (or in this case, flying) bruise now, but taking the opportunity to deliver three crushing blows to Divine’s chest, and a fourth to the Sentry. They struggled against the telekinetic grip, Sentry’s screams now completely incoherent expressions of rage. His shadow seemed to swell, taking on greater and greater definition, growing ever darker as he screamed.  
  
The X-Men opened fire with everything they could throw at the pair. Concussive blasts. Electricity. Bullets. Fire. Telekinetic blasts. Organic spikes. An angry Wolverine traveling at 300 mph with claws extended. Only the last seemed to have an effect, his adamantium claws leaving shallow gashes across The Sentry’s ribcage but failing to do anything more. Blood began to seep down Sentry’s uniform. The storm grew ever darker. Thunder roared, and lightning struck the Sentry six times in a row.  
  
His body was almost entirely obscured in darkness now. Shadows writhed about him. … and then a thousand tendrils of darkness burst from his body and flooded down towards the mutants on the ground. They scattered. Not quickly enough. Rachel Grey and Psylocke were impaled. All their fears, all their nightmares flashed before their eyes at once. The hold was broken. Divine and the Sentry were free.  
  
Namor fell. Still more tendrils. Still more mutants impaled. Screams shook the very air as horror built upon horror.   
  
Irma saw a tendril moving towards her, and another for each sister. Knew they could never escape it.  
  
Karen slammed into the Sentry going somewhere near Mach 17. He tumbled head over heels for a mile in the air before he managed to right himself and arrest his movement. The tendrils retracted into the Sentry’s shadow, and his skin cracked further, fire blazing around him, eyes glowing red as he turned to look at the newly arrived Kryptonian.  
  
And suddenly, he seemed very lost, and very afraid. “... I can’t stop it,” he whimpered. “It’s too much! I... I can’t control it. It’s coming back. The Void is...”  
  
A blast of full strength heat vision nearly knocked Karen out of the sky. Her clothing half burned away, she whirled around to face Divine, who floated some one hundred yards distant.  
  
“I was wondering when you’d show up,” Divine said.  
  
The molten cracks spread further through the Sentry’s body, and he shuddered, a fiery nimbus appearing around him once more. “... Oh God... oh God help me...!” A yellow corona flared into being around his body, bringing with it horrific molten heat... and the power of a yellow star.  
  
Karen could feel her energy stores being boosted by his presence. By whatever was happening. The corona grew more intense. The thrum of energy more dire.  
  
“ENOUGH!” A girl’s voice cried. The corona winked out. From Sentry’s left eye blazed the tell-tale electric blue Phoenix emblem which was the sign of Rachel Grey using her powers.  
  
“We’re not going to let you hurt anyone else!” three voices said in unison. Irma. Phoebe. Celeste.  
  
More voices joined in. Some Karen recognized, some she did not. Every telepathic X-Man had joined forces for an all-out assault on the Sentry’s mind, and he was fighting them with every ounce of strength that he had.  
  
Divine sized Karen up. “... Looks like it’s just you and me now,” she said.  
  
Battle began between the two daughters of Krypton, and once again, the earth did tremble beneath their feet. The battle quickly became a mobile one, the Kryptonians pursuing each other at hypersonic speeds as they engaged in what was part brawl, part aerial dogfight across the face of three continents. It ended where the fight between Power Girl and Divine had begun, months ago and a few realities sideways: Antarctica.  
  
Each was bruised and battered, and neither’s clothing had survived, but Divine was the stronger of the two: she had absorbed more Solar energy, and though the impact of her trip to the sun had faded almost to nothing, there is space between the ‘almost’ and the ‘nothing;’ her blows were ever so slightly more telling.  
  
Karen was losing.  
  
But as she fought, as she evaded another piledriver blow, as she half-evaded another blast of heat-vision, Karen looked thoughtful.  
  
“... What are you thinking?” Kara asked.  
  
“That watching two gorgeous girls wrestling naked in the air across three continents is one of those ‘things I want to see before I die’ that I can now check off the list?” She swerved to avoid another blast of heat vision.  
  
Kara rolled her eyes. “No. What are you thinking?”  
  
“Something dumb,” Karen replied, glancing down at the artifact that still adorned her left hand.  
  
“No, Karen. Absolutely not. We’ll find another way.”  
  
Karen smiled. “... There isn’t another way.”  
  
She was slowing down. Her attacks coming in less quickly. She couldn’t...  
  
Divine moved in for the kill, seizing her by the throat with one hand.  
  
Karen clasped the other with the Draconian Katra, and the world went dark.  
  
\------------------  
  
Xander Harris woke suddenly to the sound of his parents arguing. He was in his bed, staring up at the ceiling of his parents’ basement in Sunnydale. He sat up, then stood up, rubbing his head, and a sense of vertigo nearly overwhelmed him. His body felt... weird. His balance was off. Nothing moved the way it was supposed to. “... Ugh...” he muttered. “Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten that last slice of pizza.”  
  
The room slowly came into focus.  
  
“... a waste of space, Jess. A fucking waste of space. You really think he’s going to do a damn thing with his life except rot away in that basement?”  
  
“How should I know?! He’s YOUR son. God knows he doesn’t have anything in common with my side of the family.”  
  
His father’s voice grew angrier. “The hell is that supposed to mean?”  
  
“You know exactly what it means, Tony. If he’s a worthless waste of space, it’s because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”  
  
“Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!” The sound of a fist hitting a face echoed down the basement stairs. Then again. Again. And again.  
  
Then came a different sound. The sound of a woman crying.  
  
Xander stood at the bottom of the stairs, paralyzed by shame and anger and hatred towards his parents, barely able to breathe. His emotions seemed to burrow down beneath his skin, wrapping over muscle, joining to ligaments, burrowing into nerve endings.  
  
There was a strange fog flowing down the stairs from above. Light coming from the crack beneath the door.  
  
“So,” a voice said. “This is what you are.”  
  
Xander turned. A very ordinary looking man with short brown hair and dark brown eyes was leaning up against the wall. His garb was simple enough: a black t-shirt and black slacks.  
  
“You’re...”  
  
The man smiled cheerfully. “Max,” he said.  
  
Xander shivered. “You’re wrong. This isn’t what I am. I’ve changed.”  
  
“Nobody ever really changes. Sure, you got put into that new body, and you thought it made you different. But deep down? This is what you are. This will always be what you are.”  
  
Xander shook his head. “... No.”  
  
“Doesn’t work that way, son. Can’t change the truth just by saying ‘no.’ You were given the powers of a Kryptonian. You didn’t deserve them, but you got them. What did you do with that power that was worthwhile? Far as I can tell, jack shit. You sat around and let other people tell you what to do. They led you by the hand, and you didn’t mind, because you’re not a leader.” Max smirked. “You’re a whipping boy.”   
  
“I’m... I’m in Divine’s mind,” Xander muttered.  
  
“Damn right you are, but if you think I went through all the effort of building a mind for my creation only for you to take up residence like a damned squatter the moment it becomes convenient, you’ve got another think comin’. You’re in my world, son, and you’re never going to leave this basement again.”  
  
Xander shook his head. The world flickered. Karen shook her head. Another flicker.  
  
“Got some gender confusion going on there, do you?” Max asked, clearly amused. “Guess it’s only natural if you’ve been living in Power Girl’s body all this time. I’ll leave you to sort it out. You’ve got plenty of time to work on it, after all. A Kryptonian exposed to the right sort of light can stick around for just this side of forever. So, have fun with that.”  
  
Max vanished.  
  
The sound of Xander’s mother, crying upstairs, filled the basement.  
  
Xander looked up the stairs that led to the main level of the house. The distance between here and there seemed all but infinite, and a palpable aura of dread emanated from it, flowing down the stairs with the fog that grew thicker by the second.  
  
He took the first step.  
  
She took the second.  
  
He took the third.  
  
One step at a time, Xander ascended the stairwell. It was the hardest thing he had ever done, but he faced his dread and he forced his way through it, reached out for the door, opened it.  
  
The light beneath the door pulsed, and all at once Karen found herself in the antarctic laboratory where Divine and Power Girl had once fought. Great glass tubes lined the walls, failed clones within each one. It was cold. There was a hole in the ceiling. The sound of a wailing infant came from further in.  
  
“You’re not Power Girl,” a voice identical to her own said.  
  
She turned. Divine was there. Angry. Glaring at her. Floating in mid-air.  
  
“No, I’m not,” Karen admitted.  
  
“You don’t have any right to wear that face.”  
  
“No, I don’t,” Karen admitted.  
  
“Then why are you still wearing it?”  
  
“Because...”  
  
Buffy.  
Willow.  
Giles.  
Cordelia.  
Ben.  
Noriko.  
Julian.  
Cessily.  
Laurie.  
David.  
Irma.  
  
“I see,” Divine said. “You really think that makes a difference, though? You think that they can save you here?”  
  
Karen shook her head. “... No.” She walked towards the source of the crying.  
  
“Stay away from her,” Divine said. “You have no right to go in there.”  
  
“I know,” Karen replied.  
  
She stepped through the far door. The chamber beyond was a nursery. A child with dark hair not more than a few months old lay in a crib surrounded by bright shiny toys. It was a girl, and she was crying her lungs out, wailing, tears streaming down her cheeks.  
  
“What is this?” Karen asked.  
  
“That’s Divine, of course,” Max said, stepping out from behind the crib for all that there hadn’t been room there to conceal his form. “You get it, right? You used that artifact. Poured yourself into her mind. I suppose your plan was to destroy her? Take her over from the inside?”  
  
“... I never actually thought that far ahead,” Karen replied.  
  
Max sighed. “Then you’re a fool. Doesn’t matter if you’ve left that basement. The price of leaving here is one you’ll never pay.”  
  
Immediately, Karen understood, and Xander as well. Indecision plagued her.  
  
“You’re not really going to kill a baby, are you?” It was Willow’s voice.  
  
“That’s a bit beyond the pale, Xander.” Buffy’s voice.  
  
“I think you should go back to your room.” his father’s voice.  
  
Her father’s.  
  
No one to help her. Nothing to save her. An impossible choice.  
  
“You’re a whipping boy.” It was Principal Snyder who spoke this time. “Raised by mongrels and set on a sacrificial slab.”  
  
“I’m...”  
  
“Off you go, Xander,” Max said. “Or Karen. Or whatever you want to be called.”  
  
The baby was still crying. Still wailing. Shrieking. Faces surrounded her. The eyes of everyone she had ever known, all telling her she was worthless. All telling her that she couldn’t make this choice.  
  
 _“... You have it within you to be a hero,”_ Kara said. _“I believe in you, Xander.”_  
 _“I believe in you,”_ Irma echoed a moment later.  
  
Karen crossed the room to where the infant Divine wept in her crib. Looked down at her. It would be so easy. All she needed to do was pick up the pillow and smother the baby.  
  
… but that’s not what a hero does.  
  
Karen scooped Divine up into her arms, rocked her gently, whispered, “I’m here now,” and kissed her on the forehead.  
  
The infant Divine stopped crying. Looked up. Smiled a toothless smile.  
  
Karen felt the infant in her arms grow blazingly hot, but she didn’t let go. Divine’s form glowed like a star. And then Karen wasn’t holding a baby. The thing in her arms was a thousand points of light, and so unbearably warm, but she embraced it all the same. It flowed into her body, the warmth spreading from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.  
  
The warmth faded.  
  
The room faded.  
  
The world faded.  
  
“...ren... Karen, Karen, are you with me? Is it you? Did it... work?”  
  
Karen opened her eyes. She was lying on her back in a vast field of snow. Kara Zor-L stood over her, and for the first time, Kara was neither translucent nor ghostly.  
  
“I feel weird,” Karen muttered.  
  
Kara laughed. “Can you stand?”  
  
“... just... give me a minute...”  
  
The world seemed to swim around her. She felt utterly drained. Like she could sleep for a week.  
  
“Stay with me, Karen...”  
  
She slipped into a dreamless slumber.  
  
\------------------  
  
Karen woke up in a hospital bed at the Xavier Institute. Her everything hurt. Muscles ached that she hadn’t known she had. At first, all she saw was white. She blinked a few times, and she tried to rub at her eyes but lacked the strength to lift her hands. The world slowly gained definition. Sound returned to her. Touch. The blanket she was lying under was a soft and warm. The air was cold.  
  
“Welcome back,” said a kindly voice.  
  
She looked up into the blue eyes and muzzled face of Hank McCoy. “... Hey,” she said.  
  
“I’ll tell the others that you’re awake,” Henry said.  
  
“... I’m... not Divine,” she managed, though it kind of hurt to talk.  
  
Hank nodded. “Indeed not, Ms. Starr. If we thought you were Divine, you would be in cryo-storage. Kara explained the situation, and Ms. Frost has confirmed it.”  
  
Karen sank back into the bed. “...k,” she said. She was asleep a few seconds later.  
  
When she woke again, she felt better. Stronger. She was still in a hospital bed in the medical lab, but there was a light above her, and it felt... good. It felt like sunlight. She sat up, and then grabbed the blanket and pressed it against herself before it could leave her naked. “... Er, hello?”  
  
As before, Hank McCoy was there. “Ah, excellent,” he said as he checked her vitals. “I suspected the simulated sunlight might do some good. Not quite as effective as the real thing, I grant you, but still undeniably useful.”  
  
“... could I have some clothes, please?”  
  
Hank blinked. “Oh. Yes, yes of course. I will send word.”  
  
Noriko and Kara Zor-L arrived five minutes later, Kara carrying a bundle of clothes under her arm.  
  
It felt weird, looking at what had been her body from the outside. Karen felt a peculiar sense of vertigo. “Hey,” she said.  
  
“Hey,” Kara said, offloading the clothes into Karen’s arms. “How you feeling?”  
  
“Better,” Karen replied. “Weird. I dunno. How long was I out?”  
  
“You were unconscious for six days, twelve hours, and thirty four minutes,” Hank said cheerfully.  
  
“Damn. That long?”  
  
Kara and Noriko both nodded. Kara took the opportunity to draw the privacy curtain shut around Karen’s bed, and Karen began to put on her clothes.  
  
“So Nori, I guess I, er, kind of owe you and the others an explanation.”  
  
“Kara gave us the short version,” Noriko said. “Chaos magic. Extradimensional portal. Two people stuck in the same body.” She shook her head incredulously, and Karen saw it easily on account of her x-ray vision. “I can’t imagine what that would have been like.”  
  
Karen stepped out from behind the curtain, fully dressed.  
  
“That was quick,” Noriko said.  
  
“Super speed,” Karen replied.  
  
“So tell me, was that the craziest thing that ever happened to you?”  
  
Karen thought about it. “... Inca mummy girl, preying mantis lady, possessed by a hyena...” she mused. She shrugged. “I’m gonna go with ‘craziest long-term thing,’ but not necessarily ‘craziest thing’.”  
  
Noriko exchanged glances with Kara. “Your life is weird,” Nori said.  
  
“You have no idea.”  
  
“So your real name’s Xander?”  
  
“OK, some idea,” Karen conceded. “And it was, yeah. … but I think...” she looked down. “I think I might just be Karen Starr, now.”  
  
Kara raised an eyebrow.  
  
“When I used that device on Divine, I... well, I think what I did might have had... repercussions.”  
  
“You’re not wrong,” Emma said as she walked into the room. Kara, Noriko, and Karen looked up. Stephen Strange was accompanying the headmistress, clad all in the robes of his station. “Ms. Ashida,” Emma said.  
  
“Uh... right. Leaving.” She made good on that, heading out through the door, which shut behind her.  
  
Karen felt a little uncomfortable. “... So. What now?”  
  
“What indeed,” Doctor Strange replied. “You have placed yourself in a difficult position, young lady. When you left the circle you forced me to ground a considerable amount of magical energy through my own body - an experience I am not eager to repeat. The vast majority of it was neutralized, but some clung to me, to the house, to you, and to the artifact. It represented … an instability. One which was made worse by the use of said artifact in the manner you chose to employ it.”  
  
Karen looked down. “Sorry.”  
  
“Apology accepted,” Stephen replied. “But it won’t help you. I’m afraid the circumstances surrounding your transfer into that body, added to the dissolution of Divine’s mind and the merging of her spirit with yours, have rendered any future attempt at body transfer unlikely at best.”  
  
“I’m stuck this way,” Karen said.  
  
“You knew?” Kara asked.  
  
“I suspected,” Karen replied. “But what else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just... kill her.”  
  
Kara smiled, and there was pride in her voice when she replied. “Yes, you could have. You could have killed her. You chose not to.”  
  
Karen looked mildly uncomfortable, but didn’t dispute it. Her eyes widened suddenly. “What about the Sentry? Was anyone hurt?”  
  
“Yes,” Emma replies. “And some killed. But fewer than there might have been. We dealt with the Sentry. He will not be a problem again.”  
  
Karen blinked. “What does that mean?”  
  
Emma gave Karen a level look. “It took all of us to stop him. Every telepath on the grounds, and using Cerebra to boost our power further. The amount of power unleashed was... considerable, and we still came within a hair’s breadth of failure. We were indelicate. We stopped him at the cost of destroying his mind and rendering him effectively brain dead. His body discorporated shortly after.”  
  
Karen swallowed. “... Oh.”  
  
“Your situation,” Emma said, “Is a bit more problematic. You now inhabit the body of one of the most wanted criminals on the planet. You can imagine that SHIELD, such as it is in its current, leaderless state, was not particularly interested in an explanation which involved mystical mind transfer. Things will be difficult for you here for the foreseeable future.”  
  
“I... I’ll go.”  
  
Emma gave Karen a look that said, ‘you just said the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say.’ “We do not abandon our own simply because standing with them is difficult, Karen. We will see you through this.”  
  
Kara nodded. “You’re not responsible for Divine’s actions, and I won’t let you go down for them.”  
  
Karen smiled.  
  
“Which,” Emma said, “Brings us back to ‘what now?’”  
  
Karen looked down. “... I need to tell my friends, for one. In my home dimension.” She looked at Doctor Strange. “If that’s still possible?”  
  
Strange sighed. “Provided you promise not to break the circle, I suppose so. I’ll begin the preparations. Come to me when you are ready.”  
  
As Doctor Strange left the room, Karen felt the weight of the last few days settling into her heart. “I guess it’s not going to get any easier,” she said.  
  
“No,” Emma replied. “But with all of that out of the way,” Her expression hardened, and she looked Karen directly in the eye. “What, exactly, are your intentions towards Irma Cuckoo?”  
  
And suddenly, Karen knew exactly what a rabbit felt like when it saw a hawk’s shadow.  
  
\------------------  
  
It was a journey which had been a long time coming. What had begun on Halloween in another dimension now saw what once might have been its conclusion take shape: the portal had failed. A second portal was forged.  
  
Karen Starr - once Xander Harris - was going home. But she was going home to say goodbye. Her friends had gathered in the chamber overlooking the mystic circle. Noriko, Julian, Cessily, Laurie, Josh, Irma, a few others. Karen’s lips still tingled from the kiss she and Irma had shared upon their reunion: a passionate affair which had been broken only by the sudden drop in room temperature which had accompanied the arrival of Celeste and Phoebe. There were problems yet to be faced, problems by the score. Not all of her friends had been as understanding as Noriko. Some were angry. But they were angry as friends.  
  
Kara stood next to Karen in the circle. They were going together. They would return together. A journey to Xander’s world to complete the circle.  
  
The light built and built until it seemed blinding. The portal took them. Karen saw a whirling tunnel of light, and she fell. She fell and she fell and she fell, the tunnel howling around her, Kara at her side.  
  
She landed on her butt. An accompanying crash told her that Kara had made the journey as well. They had arrived. They were in the library at Sunnydale High, directly over the spot which corresponded to the Hellmouth.  
  
She rose to her feet.  
  
“That’s far enough,” a familiar voice said from behind her.  
  
She turned. Buffy was there, sword in hand. Behind her, Giles held a crossbow leveled at her heart. Willow was further back, watching from behind the library desk, and...  
  
“I don’t know who you are or what hell dimension you came from,” Buffy said, “but a pair of demon Power Girl knock-offs are not putting up shop here. We’re a non-shoppy hellmouth. Totally closed for business, got it?”  
  
“I don’t know, they look pretty busty to me.” A beat. “... Friendly. I meant friendly.” That voice was a familiar one, too. Very, very familiar. With a mounting sense of dread, Karen turned to look at the speaker.  
  
Xander Harris stood in front of the book shelves, baseball bat in hand.  
  
“What.” Karen said.  
  
Kara glanced worriedly at Karen.  
  
Xander blinked. “What?”  
  
Karen stared. “WHAT?!”  
  
 ** _The End. For Now._**


End file.
